Foreword

FOREWORD

1. Managing Committee, Mathur Association Bombay takes great pleasure in presenting its “40th Anniversary Year, 2010” Edition of its member’s Directory, (being published in year 2011).

The 1995 (Silver Jubilee Year of the Mathur Association Bombay - MAB) Directory had contained a detailed and informative account of Mathurs in Mumbai (then Bombay) from the early Thirties onwards, and the same was repeated in the next Edn. of the Directory in the year 2006. For those who have not seen our two said Directories and for the information of those who have joined us later, a portion of it is repeated below:

QUOTE:

“ In the early Thirties and for almost three decades after, the house of Shri Moti Lal (the well known film star of those days) used to be a meeting place for most of the local Mathurs as well as for those coming to visit Bombay from outstations. Another popular place used to be the premises of J.N. Singh & Co. (then Delhi based renowned Mathur paper merchants) where doors were always open to any visiting Mathur. In those days Mathurs residing in Bombay were few, perhaps countable on fingers. Occasional get-togethers (like the Janam Ashtmi function at Shri Moti Lal’s place and later, the January Katha-cum Lunch at Shri Shiva Shankara’s place) used to provide regular opportunities for Bombay Mathurs to meet. These two occasions were held with religious regularity and enthusiasm by the two aforesaid respective hosts year after year and were attended each year in ever increasing numbers by Bombay Mathur families. The number had gone above 350 families by 1984 when Shri Shiva Shankara breathed his last. Perhaps nowhere else in the history of Mathur community in any city of India or abroad would there be a parallel example of an individual Mathur like Late Shri Shankara hosting all by himself Katha, and sumptuous lunch to the entire community of the town once each year for more than 25 years without break. In a city like Bombay where distance and time constraints prevent people from meeting each other, these and other get-togethers in the initial days went a long way in bringing the community members closer and in getting to know each other better.

It was actually from around 1960 onwards that Mathurs from various parts of India (notably from Delhi, U.P. and Rajasthan) started coming and settling down in Bombay in number, either on transfer or for availing of the good job and business opportunities provided by the developing metropolis. Over a period, a good number of them had their own houses and became permanent settlers. It was then that Shri Shiva Shankara and few other prominent community members thought of giving the semi-formed community togetherness a definite shape, mainly to develop cultural activities and feelings of brotherhood. Finally, in the year 1970 the MAB came into a formal existence with Shri Shiva Shankara as the founder President and a band of dedicated community members forming the Managing Committee. The ball was set rolling for organizing a couple of MAB get togethers per year, publishing MAB Directories etc. There has been, by grace of God, no looking back since then.”

The Association has since come a long way, managed all these years by Managing Committees of dedicated members under the able leadership of the following Presidents, as given below:

(a) Shri Shiva Shankara ---- ---- ---- 1970–mid 1979

(b) Shri ShivRajBahadur ---- ---- ----mid 1979–August1991

(d) Shri O.P.Mathur ---- ---- ---March1992 – March 1999

(e) Shri Krishna Murari ---- ---- --- April1999 –

The Association owes much to its aforesaid past Presidents and to its past Secretaries, Late Dr. J.S. Galgotia and Late S/Shri K.B. Lall and Kailash B. Mathur, as also to all the past members of its Managing Committee for its growth, organizational development and the well groomed position it is in today. “

UNQUOTE:

2. To start its 40th Anniversary Year, 2010 we fondly remember with gratitude and pay homage to the memory of and the services rendered by the following members of its earlier Managing Committees in the Association’s formative years of the 1960’s whose hard work and dedication had laid the strong foundation on which the Association proudly stands today:

a) Late Shri Permeshwar Dayal

b) Late Shri A.S. Mathur, (Ambuji)

c) Late Shri J.S. Mathur, (Bablaji)

d) Late Shri P.N. Mathur, a first Vice-President of MAB.

e) Late Shri Satish C. Mathur, (Churchgate)

We are happy to have one of MAB’s founder members, Shri Rajeshwar Dayal Sahib, of Andheri-E, now 88, amongst us and to receive svaluable suggestions from him from time to time.

Composition of the present Managing Committee and its Advisors, as also of the Zonal Committees since May, 2011 is given in this Directory.

3. THE ASSOCIATION

3.1 .OUR MEMBERSHIP:

a) Any Mathur singly, or as a family or a family in which one of the spouses is a Mathur, normally residing in Mumbai area on a regular basis is enlisted as a MAB member on receipt of information from him or from some other responsible source. Dependents and resident parents are taken as part of the member’s family. An earning son in a joint family is, however, treated as a separate member in his own right. Membership fee is Rs. 100 per member for each Financial year (April-March), payable at the beginning of each year.

b) Life Membership singly or for a family is also available against a one-time lump sum payment of Rs. 1000. A Life Member continues to be MAB member and on our mailing list, as “External Life Members” if he shifts out of Mumbai. Considering the ever increasing cost of servicing a Life Member and reduced returns on our investments, Life Membership is now considered for a 15 year duration. Thereafter it has to be renewed.

c) As of December -2010, MAB has a total strength of about 600 Primary members which includes about 70 External Life Members..

d) We always advise and request our members to take Life Membership as it would free them from the responsibility of having to remember to pay the annual membership year after year and would also reduce our secretarial work, besides helping the building up of the Association’s much needed Corpus fund.

3.2. OUR ZONES:

MAB covers Mathurs in the entire Mumbai and extended suburbs upto Virar on the Western Rly. and Kalyan, Ambernath and Panvel on the Central Rly. We have divided Mumbai and its far flung suburbs in seven geographical Zones (please see “MAB ZONES” and sketch in this Directory) for better coordination and administrative convenience. Each Zone has a Zonal Committee headed by a Managing Committee member Incharge of the Zone and some other dedicated Biradri persons as members as shown in the Zone details. The main idea of formation of the Zones and Zonal Committees is to provide easy, convenient means of better and more frequent contacts (Mulaqaat, aana-jaana, khana-peena) amongst Mathur families residing nearby in the Zone. It will be to our great pleasure and satisfaction if members are benefited by this Zonal system and are of help to each other in need.

Managing Committee is highly grateful to its dedicated Zonal Committee members for the interest and valuable service being rendered by them voluntarily to the Association despite their own pressures and engagements. The number of members, however in some Zonal Committees is not as much as we would have wished. We, therefore appeal to our members, specially the younger generation ladies and gentlemen to please come forward for this assignment and convey their willingness to the MAB Office or through any of our Zonal Committee member.

3.3. OUR FUNCTIONS:

It has always been our endeavour to provide opportunities to Mumbai Mathurs to meet regularly and thus get to know each other. Of late we have been holding one Central function each year (usually in January) to cover the entire Biradri in Mumbai. In addition, Zonal Committees of each of the seven Zones tries to organize at least one Zonal Function each year for the members in its Zone in an effort to bring the Zone’s members in closer contact, in a smaller group. The Zonal Function is a relatively recent concept and we wish these are organized regularly.

All these functions are largely attended and enjoyed by members and their families. Success of these functions has been mainly due to efforts of our Zonal Committees and volunteers, specially the ladies and children who put up lively entertainment programmes etc., in each function. Food in these functions is generally served at subsidized price and with the ever increasing catering cost, venue hire charges and other overheads the functions invariably run into some deficit. These deficits are met with to some extent by donations/sponsorship from generous community members.

MAB’s purpose will be well served if we could add some joy to the life of our members in this busy metropolis by occasionally enjoying together on a common platform and coming to each others help when needed. In addition, we attach utmost importance to retain the old Mathur culture which is fast getting eroded with the changing times and may, someday start fading away from the memory of our younger generation. Mathur culture, customs and traditions, evolved over centuries, are even today envy of many a communities and societies. It should, therefore be our sincere endeavour to see that our future generations are provided all opportunities to imbibe this great heritage.

May we, therefore, request members to please ensure that the youngsters in the family do participate in our functions. Presence of elders always adds a grace to our functions and they too feel happy meeting their age group, talking of old times in an inimitable style unheard of by their children.

Suggestions for improvements in our functions and offers of participation in its programmes are always solicited and welcome.

3..4: OUR NEWSLETTERS:

Communication and exchange of information between the Management and the members at large are vital elements for a healthy growth of the Association and good public relationship. For this, we issue two half-yearly Newsletters, one around June and the other around December each year, containing information of our functions, Zonal activities, happenings in the Biradri, any distinctive achievement by a member or his family members, or any other event worth reporting that comes to our notice. These letters are dispatched by post to all the members, including to all those External Life Members whose addresses are available with us.

Though we try gathering such information on their own, we may sometime miss something worth reporting in our Newsletters. Members are, therefore, requested to please promptly convey all such items of information to us directly or through our Representatives in their area for inclusion in our next Newsletter.

4. THIS DIRECTORY:

a) This Directory is corrected and updated till June, 2011. as much as possible by incorporating information supplied by helpful members or painstakingly collected by our Zonal Committees. Despite all this, there is every likelihood that some discrepancies / inaccuracies / omissions may still be found in the entries about which we may not have any information either from the member concerned or from our representatives.

We, therefore, request all members (including External Life Members) to kindly inform us immediately of any changes required against their names now and also to please keep us informed if and when there is any change in their address, phone number, or a permanent departure from Mumbai to enable us to keep our record and mailing list always updated.

b) Each local member is assigned a “Directory Ref. No.” (like S-5, E-9, etc.) for identification, depending upon his/her Zone of residence. However, this does not fully meet the purpose in our mailing and accounting system when a member shifts to some other Zone, necessitating a corresponding change in his Dir. Ref. No., every time a shifting takes place. We had, therefore, introduced a new system of “Personal Identity Number” (PIN), as per the first letter of the member’s name appearing serially in the “Alphabetical Index” in this Directory which was to be the member’s all-time No., irrespective of where he stays or shifts within Mumbai. In this directory it has been further simplified and made easy to remember by a prefix of the name’s first alphabet to its serial number under the particular Alphabet. So, it may be something like A-10, B-16, R-24, etc.

The Zonal Ref.No., will continue to be shown against the member’s name in the Zonal Section just to facilitate Zonal activities, but for all accounting purposes, a member will always be identified, in addition by his PIN, which must be quoted whenever contacting the MAB.

c) The letter “L” is prefixed to the name of each Life Member in the Alphabetical Index as well as in the Zonal Sections of this Directory.

d) E-mail id’s have been put along the names of all those members who furnished it to us in response to our requests in our Newsletters. Those who have missed it, may still email their id to us on our email add: bombaymathurs@gmail.com for our record and faster communication with them.

e) This Directory is also available on our website, http://sites.google.com/site/bombaymathurs

5.MAB WELFARE TRUST:

Managing Committee is happy to inform that a Trust, “MAB WELFARE TRUST” has been established since May, 2005,is registered at Mumbai under the Charitable Public Trusts Act. Donors to this Trust will be entitled to Section 80G Tax Relief under the I.T.Act.

The main aim of the Trust, besides charity activities is to provide medical relief to our members in distress, educational assistance, etc. Other ideas like buying land and building a Hall etc., though viable, are still in their infancy and require great efforts by members and other well wishers whose help in further development of the Trust is earnestly solicited and would be most welcome.

6. OUR GRATITUDE:

We put on record our sincere thanks and gratitude to each of our Advertisers for extending their generous support through insertion of their ads. which has helped us in publishing this Directory. We also thank our members and other well- wishers for their efforts in procuring the ads.

We convey our best wishes to all members and their families and look forward to their continued cooperation and participation in the MAB’s functions and other activities.

For & On behalf of MAB Management

Krishna Murari

President

Dated Mumbai,

June 30, 2011