“Dadar Sarvajanik Vachanalaya was, however, the first computerised public library in all of Maharashtra, much before several banks went digital, in 1996,” says a beaming Vivek Kulkarni, chairman of the library. On the occasion of its 100th anniversary last year, Kulkarni agreed to publish a book that chronicled 10 aspects of the suburb that prefixes the library’s name—culture, education, festivals, bazaars, religion, roads, the Shiv Sena, Babasaheb Amedkar and of course, the maidan with a life of its own, Shivaji Park.

Prakash Kamat, editor of the volume, worked with a crack team of 10 writer-researchers, doubling up as foot soldiers, scanning the neighbourhood for fact and dousing themselves in nostalgia, all in four months. Kamat insists the book is not so much a history of Dadar as much as it is a story, and written as such. “The only place in Mumbai which is literally awake 24 hours is Dadar. We wanted to include a timeline of events that take place here by the hour, which will be in the next edition,” he says.

“We took a four-kilometre radius, with the 28 pin code as a cut-off point and crunched history the neighbourhood in 280 pages,” says Kamat. Balasaheb Thackeray might still be Dadar’s presiding deity but Babasaheb Ambedkar left a piece of his heart here as well. His beloved bungalow, Rajgruh –his body was brought here after he passed away in Delhi, in December 1956. “From Rajgruh to Dadar Chowpatty, a sea of people gathered for one of the greatest funerals ever witnessed here,” writes Ravindra Gole.

Even without Dadar as its crutch, the library’s history is story enough. At the beginning of the 20th century, when education pivoted around south Mumbai, Shripad Mahadev Varde, Gangadhar Machve and Lakshman Raghunath Sawai opened up the first avatar of the vachanalaya, at Shriram Mandir, near Dadar Kabootarkhana. The library was itinerant, however, the only investment was a huge tin trunk that functioned as a store room. Later, they rented space at Devubai Chawl, (today at Girgaum Panchye Depot), moved to Kelkar Marg opposite the famous Dadar Emporium, before settling at Chhabildas Marg.