Bridal couples and their families seeking unusual locales for their weddings is an old tradition. Parsis held weddings on the ramparts of the erstwhile Bombay Fort, an important part of the city’s geography at that time. Politician and co-founder of the Indian National Congress Sir Dinsha Wacha (1844-1936) pointed out this nugget in Shells from the Sands of Bombay — Being My Recollections and Reminiscences, 1860-1875. City history enthusiast Vinayak Talwar provided Parsiana with a soft copy of the 1920 publication.
Cover of book by Sir Dinsha Wacha (r)
Weddings (picture for representational purpose) on the ramparts of the Fort were
popular among Parsis; below: Fort walls http://old photosbombay.blogspot.in
from Dr Rashna Poncha’s PhD thesis on Frere Town, Bombay (1842-1947)
In a piece entitled "Weddings on the Ramparts,” Wacha writes in chapter V ("A bird’s eye view of the Fort in the fifties”) that "unavailable as these ramparts had become for their original military purpose, it was not infrequently the case that wedding mandaps (temporary overhead coverings) on their top were allowed by permission of the proper authorities, to be erected by wealthier Parsis and Hindus.” Wacha noted that part of the rampart which was "opposite to the town house of Sir Jamsetji Jejeebhoy, was frequently in demand as being most eligible and convenient.” Marriages in the family of the first baronet were more than once celebrated there, as also dinner parties in connection with the weddings, he wrote. The location was later occupied by the departmental store Evans Frazer and Company, and then by Handloom House till it burnt down, on Hornby Road, the current Dr Dadabhai Naoroji Road.
"Fairylike” is the word that Wacha uses to describe the scene "to be viewed on top of this part of the western rampart from the level of the road below.” The author further muses, "Did the stalwart engineers who erected those military structures ever dream that what was meant for offence and defense should come a century later to be used for purposes of revelry and merriment, and that beauty and fashion of Bombay should occasionally congregate there and hold high jinks in which even governors sometimes participated!”
Wacha states that the Fort had "high ramparts with bastions and moats and drawbridges” and spanned an area "two miles in length and about three-quarter miles in breadth.” Construction had started in 1715. By the 1860s, the British were well entrenched in the administrative scenario of the city, with no visible threat of invasion. The Fort was over crowded and disease prone, due to which the walls were brought down to make way for large influx of migrants to the booming city.
Other books authored by Wacha include The History of Bombay Share Speculation, Life of Premchund Roychund, Life of J. N. Tata, and Rise and Growth of Bombay Municipal Government.