“That which the fountain sends forth returns again to the fountain.”
H. W. Longfellow
Flora Fountain a.k.a. Hutatma Chowk, Mumbai
Mumbai is a city of goddesses. And I am not making this up. Its name comes from one. From the revered Lady of the Mount to the goddess of the fountain, her cup overflows to quench the city’s thirst. I am talking of the Flora Fountain, a Victorian era masterpiece, credited with an Honourable Mention at the UNESCO Asia-Pacific Awards for Cultural Heritage Conservation in 2019.
Once called Bombay’s Piccadilly Circus, the circle where the fountain sits is at the southern end of the Mile Long Road, what we know today as Dr. D.N. Road. The water body marks the exact spot where the gate to the St. Thomas Cathedral, Church Gate, stood before 1860 AD.
Once the fort made way for more civic amenities, important Gothic and Neo-classical buildings sprung up in the area. The Oriental Building, Mumbai High Court, Ismail building, Somaiya Bhawan and many other heritage buildings surround this Portland stone structure.
Architecture
In a coastal city with a warm climate, fountains are a great relief. If it also provides for some aesthetics, nothing better. This must have been the thought with which the Agri–Horticultural Society of Western India commissioned the fountain. When the structure took shape, it achieved both. To the extent it was the talk of the town in the Big Apple.
Built in 1864, the design came from Richard Norman Shaw, a British architect. For someone who had never visited India, Shaw and the sculptor James Forsythe brought elements like sea shells, dolphins and beasts to include local flavour in a European creation.
But the striking feature of the fountain is the sculpture of Roman Goddess Flora atop. She bears flowers representing spring and fertility. On her feet are giant fish and sea-shells. The four corners of the water sprout have four goddesses, each holding a cornucopia of fruits, cereals, and plant foods.
Martyr’s Square
After Indian independence from the British rule, the movement for the creation of the state of Maharashtra began and Flora Fountain witnessed a blood bath. Fifty patriots laid down their lives. To immortalise this sacrifice, the assembly erected a memorial with a stone statue that depicts the patriots with a torch. In 1960, Hutatma Chowk or Martyr’s Square came into existence.
The Fountain, an inseparable part of Mumbai history, regained its resplendent self in 2017 after extensive painstaking restoration to the masonry and plumbing. Intended for the Victoria Gardens at Byculla and to be named after Sir Frere, then Governor of Bombay, the Flora Fountain reminds that change is after all, beautiful and welcome.
