आधुनिक
मुंबईचे
आद्य शिल्पकार
Mumbai
There's a bust on the front of CSMT.
Three million people walk under it every day.
Almost none of them know whose face it is.
My hope in sharing my ancestor’s story is not to glorify the past, but to make it useful for the future, and to remind us that citizenship is about participation.
— Shreerang Sunkersett · 6th-generation descendant of Jagannath “Nana” Shankarshet (Read Shreerang's Words →)
Born When Bombay Was Seven Islands. Died Leaving a Metropolis.
Sixty-two years. No official title. No government salary. Just one man spending his fortune and his lifetime building something he would never see the full benefit of.
ENTERPRISE
BEGINS TO CHANGE
INFRASTRUCTURE
MODERNITY
FINGERPRINTS
5 Foundations He Built You Still Use Every Day
From your morning local train to your university degree: how one man engineered the daily routines of 21 million Mumbaikars.
One College. Still Standing. — The Elphinstone College and University Nana helped fund still educate Maharashtra's future.
1827: ₹25,000 of His Own — At 24, Nana personally seeded the college fund. Ranade graduated from it 35 years later.
He helped raise ₹3.5 lakh for a college. At age 24.
DISCOVER →
J.J. Hospital. Still Open. — The hospital Nana helped build in 1845 still serves 1.2 million patients every year.
1845: Against the Orthodoxy — He fought caste resistance to dissection and funded the first medical textbooks in Marathi.
He built Mumbai's first free clinic before a hospital existed.
DISCOVER →
The Tracks He Laid. — The CSMT–Thane line Nana helped engineer in 1853 remains the spine of Mumbai’s daily movement.
1853: A Golden Ticket — Nana sat in the first carriage of Asia’s first train. He championed the rail when others feared it.
He opened his home as the railway's first headquarters.
DISCOVER →
The Bank He Helped Build — Nana helped charter the banking infrastructure that made Mumbai India's financial capital.
1840: Only Indian in the Room — Appointed to the Bank of Bombay as one of only two Indian directors among Europeans.
First Indian director of the Bank of Bombay. Before 40.
DISCOVER →
Rani Baug. His Decision. — Mumbai's most beloved sanctuary was a community campaign Nana led in 1862. It still opens every day.
1834: First Indian JP — A 6-year campaign broke the European monopoly on Bombay's courts. Nana's name was first on the list.
Bombay's civic backbone, 35 years before its corporation.
DISCOVER →He Built the City in Stone. He Built It in Principle, Too.
"A city without civic courage is just real estate."
In 1854, when famine drove 5,000 people into Bombay's streets, Nana organized the relief march, and funded it himself.
In 1851, when communal riots split the city along religious lines, Nana convened the intercommunity council that stopped the violence.
In 1862, after six years of campaigning, he got the first Indian names onto Bombay's list of Justices of the Peace, breaking the European court monopoly that had stood since the city was founded.
Archival witness: Nana's interventions to preserve peace between Bombay's communities.
Walk the Streets He Walked. Cross the Junctions He Named.
You’ve been to most of these places. Nana Chowk. CSMT. Rani Baug. Elphinstone. You just didn’t know who made them possible. Twelve stops. His lifetime. Yours now.
Built in 1806, this active temple was erected by Nana's father in memory of his mother.
VIEW LOCATION →A busy Mumbai junction that thousands cross daily, carrying his name as a term of affection.
VIEW LOCATION →Opened in 1857 to make quality schooling accessible to the poor children of Girgaon.
VIEW LOCATION →Where Nana lived and died. He opened one of Bombay's first private schools for girls here.
VIEW LOCATION →A cremation ground he defended from closure, personally funding the protective stone walls.
VIEW LOCATION →Nana was a Founding Fellow in 1857 and served on its inaugural Senate, shaping its early curriculum.
VIEW LOCATION →He chaired the fund that built this college, whose alumni became the makers of modern India.
VIEW LOCATION →Houses Nana's white marble statue, sculpted in London. Upstairs, the library holds books he funded.
VIEW LOCATION →The starting point of India's first train run in 1853. Look up: Nana is the only Indian face on the facade.
VIEW LOCATION →He sat on the founding committee of this premier art school, bridging traditional craft and modern design.
VIEW LOCATION →He proposed the medical college and funded scholarships so students could study medicine in Marathi.
VIEW LOCATION →He chaired the Agri-Horticultural Society for 35 years, founding this garden and the museum beside it.
VIEW LOCATION →Drag across 170 years. Notice what didn’t change.
Let's put Nana's name
back where Mumbai's
journey
began.
He laid the track. 160 years later, the track still carries his legacy. The station still doesn’t carry his name.
Rename Mumbai Central Railway Station to
Jagannath
Shankarshet Railway Station.
HIS LEGACY
GENERATIONS
MUMBAI'S BUILDER
