S. alibhoy
1. The weather is still strangely monsoonish here, the sea looks rough, the sound of thunder, waves continue to run over at Apollo Bunder.
2. Salehbhai Alibhoy had set the season, plying his skill as a Lakdawala to etch a thunder-bolt through his new initials.
3. Colaba Causeway was struck by these novelties, in the 1930s.
4. On Ormiston Road to the Causeway’s east, a new Electric House was complete with terrazzo flooring, a lift with self-closing gates and electric clocks throughout the building.
5. And at East & West Court, another new building, that offered ‘modern flats for Europeans and Parsis to let’, a Bohri became a tenant.
6. Abdul Hussain Salehbhai Alibhai Lakdawala came from a family of wood merchants, from 1935 he had trained as an electrician.
7. He opened the first electric goods shop in Colaba in 1938. Items were at a fixed rate.
8. Initially, it ran at a loss. Salehbhai shutdown the family business and concentrated on his electric shop.
9. He dropped the Lakdawala surname and became Alibhoy to everyone on Colaba Causeway.
AN ELECTRIC SHOP PLUS MINI-CAFE
ESTABLISHED 1938
East & West Court, 103B Colaba Causeway, Apollo Reclamation.
16th October, 2025.
Supported by:
Photo & Video by Philippe Calia.
