"Street Talk"

If Bandra’s streets could talk, what would they tell us about our changing environment? What did it look like? Who are the people that have walked over them and made it their home? What kind of lives did they lead? Which communities did they build? In this special issue, we bring together stories from the streets, paying tribute to the residents that have played, worked and lived on them.

The good old green days

All of the writers speak with nostalgia for how the streets used to be, a sentiment that is largely linked to the slow disappearance of green spaces, whether it is Pali Hill or the villages. In his piece titled ‘Pali Hill – My Reminiscences of a By-Gone Era’, H.D. Nanavati, describes Dr. Ambedkar Road in 1948 as “a jungle with snakes”, which he used to make his way through on his way to school.  Wency Drego’s tribute to Pali Hill and Pali Village in around the same period also describes the area of Pali Hill as filled with trees and greenery and “not a single piece of concrete, sorry…brick.”  From his boyhood memoirs, he recalls the beauty associated with what is now Union Park as full of Mango trees and Danda Green as a “hilly area, lush green, with a golf course, which people used to say, was second only to Kashmir’s Gulmarg.”  We learn that there have been struggles to maintain public spaces like these.  Arup Sarbadhikary documents the citizens’ 30-year battle to re-claim areas around the Band Stand, which was once covered with “toddy palms”, “mangroves” and low walls by the sea that children used to sit and splash around in. Unless efforts like these continue, only in folklore will Bandra be forever green.

Pali Hill – My Reminiscences of a By-Gone Era
H.D. Nanavati

I moved into my present bungalow at Pali Hill, along with my parents, in 1948. I was then nine years old…at first, my parents did not allow me to cycle down to my school, St Stanislaus High School at Hill Road, and I was compelled to take the School bus which would pick me up and drop me on Dr. Ambedkar Road, somewhere near the foot of Zig-zag Road. At that time, the area now occupied by the L.I.C. Buildings on Dr. Ambedkar Road was a thick jungle, not devoid of snakes, and I preferred to walk up through that jungle to the rear side of my bungalow rather than take the somewhat longer walk through Zig-zag Road. Later, when my parents gained more confidence in my ability to cycle, by which time I was in the last years of my school, I used to cycle down Pali Hill Road, through Pali Naka and Pali Road, straight to my school. Both sides of Pali Road were then dotted by houses, the occupants which shared with me a common hobby, listening to the “Binaca Hit Parade” on Radio Ceylon which used to transmit the latest pop songs from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. each day. So after being surreptitiously glued to my radio at home from 8 a.m. to 8.45 a.m., I would cycle furiously “to get me to the school on time” but listening all the way to the radios in each house blaring away that popular programme in otherwise quiet surroundings...

Celebrate Bandra Souvenir 2003

Pali Village and Pali Hill – Them Days
Wency Drego

One of the assets that I have acquired is a very vivid memory of my boyhood (circa 1940)…Pali Village was known as a place for pigs. Yes, almost every family would rear them as also ducks and fowls. Some families owned gardens to contain them but many used the lanes. Yet Pali Village was much cleaner than our garbage-filled guttered roads these days. Those having gardens grew chikoo, pomegranates, papayas and jam trees, while some even reared turkeys, guinea fowls and goats. Most residents being in the lower income group would sell their hens and duck eggs at two paise each and pork after slaughtering the pigs ourselves at four annas a pound, to supplement the family income. But though poor, we would have stuffed pigling and duck moile for every feast, i.e. 3-4 times a year. Fish like pomfrets, lobsters and tiger prawns were easily affordable, all fresh. If we wanted the same day’s catch, we would just walk across to Danda, where these items were even cheaper….

Our neighbouring Pali Hill, was a world apart, where only the British Govt. Bombay Presidency’s officers resided. Their bungalows (with servant quarters) were on either side of the road, now Nargis Dutt Marg, on two acre or larger plots, each having well maintained flower gardens and beautiful botanical trees. On the Pali Village side along Zig Zag Road, was Cocke’s bungalow, a three tier construction with teak wood floors and balconies and a beautiful garden at each level. There were just about a dozen of these buildings from St. Anne’s end to Petit School; but they had two gymkhanas exclusively for Britishers. The rest of the entire Pali Hill area was filled with trees and greenery not a single piece of concrete, sorry…brick

What is now Union Park was full of Mango trees and from there, down till the sea, was Danda Green…something which only those who have seen, can really visualise. It was a hilly area, lush green, with a golf course, which people used to say, was second only to Kashmir’s Gulmarg. Pali Hill Road was commonly used by courting couples for a rendezvous culminating by parking themselves on Danda Green or on the beach, yes, real sandy ones of Shirley Rajan – long after sunset….

Celebrate Bandra Souvenir 2003

Re-claiming Public Spaces in Bandra: An Ongoing Citizens’ Effort
Arup Sarbadhikary

I remember when I first came to live in Bandstand nearly 40 years ago, there used to be a low stone wall all along the sea shore at the edge of Byramjee Jeejeebhoy Road. Children sat on the wall and enjoyed the splashing of the waves at their feet. Mangroves covered most of the northern half of the rocky sea bed up to St Andrew’s church…

…The Land’s End hill sloped gently onto near the Bandstand, up to a plateau, where the plinth of the Jeejeebhoy Mansion was visible. On the path approaching the top of the hill, which used to be naval barracks during the war, was now being used for students of the J.J. College of architecture. Architect P.K. Das once lived in these barracks! The entire area was covered with toddy palms, said to number 5,000 at one time.

Disaster struck these sylvan surroundings in early 1970. In spite of Government assurance to reserve the Land’s End as a permanent green public space, the decision was suddenly reversed in 1973, which saw the advent of the first hotel at the end of the coastline at Bandstand. Public protests continued and litigation was initiated in 1974. At the forefront of the Citizen’s movement were residents of the neighbourhood, Sultan Nathani, Gerald Saldanha, S.N. Rao, Kekoo Gandhy, S.S. Varde and a host of others, some of whom are no more.

The hill was carved off for the second hotel by a builder, who abandoned the project after the litigation by the citizens led by S.S. Varde. This litigation against the builders continued for a long time. By that time nearly 80% of the hill was gobbled up...

…After the efforts of the citizens at the Bandstand, Promenade, the Municipal Commissioner allotted the Land’s End hill to the citizens. The Collector also sanctioned the land on the sea shore to the Association, which had by now formed a Trust. Shabana Azmi [M.P.] pledged funds for the development of an urban forest and public space at Lands End. This slowly started to take shape, in line with the innovative design and natural landscaping of architect Das. The Land’s End was finally restored as a public space to the Citizens after a thirty year fight!...

Celebrate Bandra Souvenir 2003

“Farmers, Fisherfolk, and communities of Faith”

Bandra conjures up the term “cosmopolitan” in more ways than one.  Although it may be commonly equated with drinks served up at the trendy bars today, it more aptly captures the constantly changing communities that make the land and streets their own. In the villages of Sherly, Rajan and Malla, Sandy Creado describes the impact of the British on farming community lifestyles; with the replacing of Marathi and Portuguese at home with English and the adopting of western styles of dressing – “trousers, coat and top hat or solar topee” while the dhoti, sleeveless jacket and inner shirt like vest and cotton cap are discarded. Johnny Alves in his history tour of Chimbai village in the 1920s introduces the vibrant East Indian community that are slowly joined by migrants from Goa and Bangalore taking up residency in the village.

Outside of the villages we find that Bazar Road is host to many other migrant communities including “Jains, Gujaratis, Marwaris, Maharashtrians, Muslims and Christians.” [See Tidbits from Bazar Road] Fishing created one common identity here in 1912, where the sea kisses the doorstep of residents’ homes and where folk “dried their bombils.”  Different communities were also drawn here by the trading of jewellery and cloth, recollects Rajesh Sanghvi, notably Jain in faith, who also made their mark on Bazar Road by building the Jain temple on Bazar Road. This religious character of Bandra is fondly remembered by Marie D’Souza [Lighting up the past on Hill Road] tracing Hill Road in the 1930s with “green fields and flower gardens on either side, especially the stretch between the Parsi Agiary right up to Mount Mary’s Church.”  In 1984, when writer Amit Chaudhuri’s parents move to St. Cyril’s Road, it is the presence of Christians that inspires him to put pen to paper in a homage to the street. But it is not rootless cosmopolitanism for Chaudhuri, but the feeling of being part of a community that ties him to memoirs of Bandra in the past, which continue to flourish today.

The Villages of Rajan, Sherly and Malla
Sandra Creado

Bandra had a number of villages comprising of hundreds of acres of agricultural lands, fruit orchards and salt pans. Among the surviving villages are Sherly (Xellalim), Rajan (Razan) and Malla (Mallem). The village (gaothan) was normally built on rocky ground, leaving the surrounding fertile areas available for cultivation. Paddy (rice) was the main crop cultivated in these three villages…

…In the Early years of the 20th century wealthy landowners from the villages drove in Victorias, ate at tables with knives and forks and had begun to speak English at home instead of Portuguese and Marathi which were earlier used.

The men had already adopted the Western style of dressing – trousers, coat and top hat or solar topee and had discarded their dhoti, sleeveless jacket and inner shirt like vest and cotton cap. Some women had switched to the Western style of dressing, but many women still used their traditional 9 yard sari, worn with the pleats tucked in at the back…The looms which wove our beautiful Paithani wedding saris have closed down as the demand died out…

…Sweets are our forte; ranging from the simple rustic cucumber cake, atola of new rice, Chatch of sweet potatoes, to the laborious, time consuming techniques of making and forming the marzipan into beautiful fruits, cordial tigelinka, Roekajao, Bol-de-coc, Letri, Fou de Mel etc…

…Many people from the villages of Rajan Sherly and Malla have risen to great heights in their field of work and have left a positive impact on their families and society.  Some have joined the Army/Navy and fought in the World Wars; others were and still are respected and admired…

Celebrate Bandra Souvenir 2007

Chimbai Village and Bandra – In the 1920s
Johnny Alves

I was born in the bullock cart age that is if one could afford a bullock cart. The residents of Bandra were mostly East Indians who were small time farmers. There were no cars; no buses and walking just came naturally. Children walked to school, from Chuim to St. Andrew’s and fathers walked to Bandra station to catch a train.

As far as I can remember, Chuim had one car – A Vauxhall – it was such an old shaky model and we called it ‘Valkee’ when Uncle Albert offered to give us a lift by his car we used to answer “No, thank you Uncle, we will reach much faster if we walk.”…

…If I remember well, every East Indian worth his name owned a bungalow and a mali, who would offer rooms to visitors from Goa and Mangalore free for 3 months thereafter they were invited to pay if they liked the house. The young lads from Goa or Mangalore came to Bandra to appear for their matric exams and never left afterwards – some of them still own houses in Bandra in this manner…”

Celebrate Bandra Souvenir 2007

Tidbits from Bazar Road
Roseanna

Today this area is one of the most cosmopolitan places in Bandra. The colourful mixture of people here comprises of Jains, Gujaratis, Marwaris, Maharashtrians, Muslims and Christians. Each community has its own place of worship almost sharing compound walls, if any. It has some of the oldest constructions and walking through the narrow lanes is a treat for any architect…

This place houses the very first market in bandra, called the Bandra Town Market. Hawkers vending vegetables and fruit line the whole section of the road leading to the market…

…Aunty Patel was born in Bazar Road on December 03 1912. At 95 she has a razor sharp memory and can recall the days when the sea kissed her doorstep at Bazaar Road…She told me how the place where Baba Nagar stands today was once known as Bombil Wadi because the fisherfolk of Bazar Road used the area to dry their bombils. Fishing was the traditional occupation of the people of Bazar Road…

Celebrate Bandra Souvenir 2007

The Jain Mandir on Bazar Road
As told by Rajesh Sanghvi to Joan D’Silva

The Jain Mandir sits in a secluded spot on Bazar Road. The mandir is mainly for the Marwari Jain families living in Bandra, and from the surrounding suburbs. Many of these families have their homes and their business centres in the lanes that surround the Mandir….

…In the beginning of the 1920s there were around 15-20 Marwari, Kutchi and Gujarathi migratory families that set up home and business around the mandir. They took to trading in jewellery, cloth and money lending. Today there are around 140 Marwari families and an equal number of Gujarathi and Kutchi families associated with this Mandir….

Celebrate Bandra Souvenir 2007

Lighting up the past on Hill Road
Marie D’Souza

…Hill Road in the 1930s was like a country lane compared to what it is today. There were green fields and flower gardens on either side, especially the stretch between the Parsi Agiary right up to Mount Mary’s Church.

I am the proud owner of two albums full on antique photos, dating back to the early days of the 20th century. It is amazing and sometimes amusing to see the clothes they wore so long ago. Christian ladies wore long skirts with frills and flounces and the men were always suited and booted for the photo sessions, which were few and far between. Parsi and Hindu ladies wore heavy saris with their heads covered…

…Preserved between the pages of one album is a newspaper cutting yellowed with age, dated 26th March 1928….This was a great occasion for Bandra, for it marked the day when electric lights first lit up the streets. Hitherto, gas lights had done the job. The Bandra Power House is in the compound adjoining my own. It has been renovated and upgraded and is today serving Reliance Energy….

Celebrate Bandra Souvenir 2007

St. Cyril Road
Amit Chaudhuri

In 1984, my parents moved to a small, appealing flat in St Cyril Road, Bandra.…While this lane was called St Cyril Road, all the lanes that run parallel to it were also named after saints, most of them as obscure as St Cyril. Mentioned together, those names became a fading, if absurd, hallelujah to a way of life. I must have been lonely in that old life; sometimes I was conscious of that loneliness, and sometimes I mistook it for a sort of unease.

But I can find no other explanation for my welcoming of St Cyril Road into my life. It wasn’t that the flat was the first one my father properly owned in Bombay. It was the discovery of a community made up, predominantly, of Christians – and of the lanes and by-lanes in which that community existed. What I had missed in my childhood without knowing it, was community; we had camped our nuclear family; my father, my mother and myself in company apartments; I had surveyed, from windows and balconies of other multi-storeyed buildings. I had not suspected the need in myself, for physical contact, the need to be close to ground-level, within earshot of my surroundings, to be taken out of myself, randomly into the lives of others.

I wrote a poem in 1985, while living in the studio apartment of Warren Street in London. It was called St Cyril Road, Bombay, and I must have written it between avoiding lectures, looking despondently out of the window, and eating lunch at half past three. From where, at the time St Cyril Road came back to me, I don’t know; here though, is the poem.

St Cyril Road, Bombay

Every City has its minority, with its ironical, tiny village fortressed against the barbarians, the giant ransacks and the pillage of the larger faith. In England, for instance the ‘Asians’ cling to their ways as they never do in their own land. On the other hand, the Englishman strays from his time-worn English beliefs. Go the Asian street in London, and you will find a ritual of life that refuses to compete with the unschooled world outside. In Bombay, it’s the Christian minority that clings like ivy to its own branches of faith. The Christian boy with the guitar sings more sincerely than the Hindu boy. And in Cyril Road, you’re familiar with cottages hung with flora, and fainting drooping bougainvillaea, where the noon is a charged battery, and evening’s a visionary gloom in which insects make secret noises, and men inside their single rooms sing quaint Portuguese love songs – here, you forget, at last , to remember that the rest of Bombay has drifted away, truant and dismembered from the old Bombay. There, rootless, garish, and widely cosmopolitan, where every executive is an executive, and every other man a Caliban in tow-toned shoes, and each building a brooding tyrant that towers over streets ogling with fat lights…Give me the bougainvillaea flowers and a room where I can hear birds arguing. I won’t live in a pillar of stone, as ants and spiders live in the cracks of walls, searching for food alone in the sun-forgotten darkness. That is why I’ve come to St Cyril Road to lose myself among the Christians, and feel Bombay like a huge load off my long-suffering chest. Woken up at six o’clock in the morning by half-wit birds who are excited in the knowledge that day is dawning on the sleeping lane – that’s what I want. The new day enters my head like a new fragrance. I rise, dignified, like Lazarus from the dead.

(Amit Chaudhuri is a renowned novelist, poet and Hindustani musician, who lives in Kolkata and performed at the first CB festival)

Celebrate Bandra Souvenir 2003

Artistic Streets

The streets of Bandra are paved with art. And Pali Hill has a special place in the cultivation of this image as home to the “golden age of Hindi cinema.”  A starry-eyed Maithili Rao dubs this area as Beverly Hill from the 1950s and 1960s welcoming “Indian cinema’s first lady” actress Nargis as well as veteran actors like Dilip Kumar and Pran. Poet and director Gulzar may have expressed fear at how “film people with their aggrandizing ways” could take over Bandra, however they appear to have merged into what Rao terms the sprawling “creative community.”  The 14th Road is one of these particular areas, where Pankaj Parashar locates the “Bollywood fraternity” [See Fame on 14th Road]. Playing on the streets, Parashar is part of the mingling of art worlds where he sees dancers like Cuckoo, music directors Anand-Milind or Film Producer Ramesh Sippy produce their masterpieces. He observes their freedom as “this became their street and the ordinary people became their props…”

Another prominent street which housed giants in Hindi film is Carter Road, home to Hrishikesh Mukherjee for over 50 years. Sadanand Menon in his special tribute to this filmmaker of iconic movies like Anuradha (1960), Anand (1971) and Abhimaan (1973) gives us a glimpse of daily life in his daily abode:

…This is the house where on any day you would bump into Sachin Dev Burman coming in with his starched white Bangla dhoti or a young Amitabh and Jaya in deep conversation or a Ritwick Ghatak sprawled on a bed or a Salil Choudhury and Utpal Dutt exchanging notes or a Rekha as she demonstrated some aerobic exercise or a rahi Masoom Raza and Rajinder Singh Bedi sharing Urdu ‘shairs’ or a Deena Pathak re-living her lines (on dancer Chandralekha’s request) from the famous IPTA play ‘Jasma Odhan’…

Beyond the film world, the visual art’s scene has also benefited from Bandra’s creative environment. Kekoo Gandhy, dubbed as “Bandra’s father of the Art movement” by Khorshed Gandhy was a part of the transition to contemporary Indian art. A small room at Rampart Art was developed as a hub for exhibitions of excellence showcasing the work of artists like Jamini Roy and photographer Henri Cartier Bresson. Institutions like this and creative collectives in the Hindi film world have paved the way for artistic streaks to follow in their legendary footsteps.

Beverly Hills on Pali Hill
Maithili Rao

Film critics may not agree on what makes a good movie but they are unanimous about the golden age of Hindi cinema. That was the 50s and early 60s. By felicitous coincidence, Bandra was crowned the film industry’s starry capital around the same decade…And so, Bandra became the green haven for Hindi cinema’s pioneers and poets, stars and stalwarts, maestro’s and movie moguls, flamboyant show men like Subhash Ghai and radical young Turks like Saeed Mirza…

…The northern slope of what is known as Nargis Dutt Road meanders into the curvy lanes of Union Park. This geographical patch radiated concentrated, multi-generational start power that dazzled. From Pran the most gentlemanly of villains to Aamir Khan the perfectionist, inhabit this little stretch. Pran built one of the first bungalows.  Soon, other landmark bungalows raised their unostentatious heads and housed Dilip Kumar, Usha Kiran, Nasir Hussain, Amiya Chakravorty. When Nargis moved to Pali Hill after marrying Sunil Dutt and they built a sprawling house in the cul de sac, it marked the arrival of Indian cinema’s first lady…. 

…Gulzar, poet par excellence and sensitive director, followed his mentor Bimalda to Bandra in the 70s, very much at home in “a place of faith and education.” He loves the beautiful churches and charming villages.  Gulzar was once afraid that film people with their aggrandizing ways would take over Bandra.. Bandra gave the film community not only space but respected their privacy. In turn, this creative community has respected Bandra’s unique ethos where the past lives peacefully with the present….

Celebrate Bandra Souvenir 2005

Fame on the 14th Road
Amy Fernandes

It’s a quiet mile. A long avenue with a clutch of residential apartments, some tall buildings, some bungalows, all in a row on either side of the road, like a set of uneven teeth. But there are about ten odd buildings on this road that the Bollywood fraternity has come to respect and recognise as the hub of film making. Pankaj Parashar reminisces about his growing years on the 14th Road, on the street where he lived.

“It was as if all of Bollywood lived here, once upon a time. Cukoo the dancer lived here. Madan Mohan the actor lived here. Chitra Gupte, Anand-Milind the music duo lived here. So did Devendra Goel and son of the soil Manoj Kumar. Of course, most of them are not here today, but it’s still Bollywood vibrant. Why Ashutosh Gowarikar stays here. And then, there’s moi.

A lot of film moments happened here. Why, this was the birth place of the all time great, Sholay. Ramesh Sippy’s office was on this street, where I remember playing on the streets, as kids, and watching Salim Javed smoking outside, whether it was out of creative nervousness or deep thoughts, I can’t tell. The very popular Quayamat se Quayamt Tak with Amir Khan (then Amir Khan) was made here. The name, Navketan Films was thought up at my house. I remember Vijay Anand (uncle to me), turning up at my place in his shorts. The comedian, Mehmood and Rajesh Khanna before he became a superstar were also. Such was the casualness of this street that film heroes and heroines walked freely without being mobbed, because this became their street and the ordinary people became their props…”

Celebrate Bandra Souvenir 2007

Hrishikesh Mukherjee: The Dada-Moshai of Carter Road
Sadanand Menon

Not only has Hrishida (as he is universally called) lived on Carter Road, Bandra, for almost 50 years now, but he must be the one person whose house (former house, now) ‘Anupama’ (opposite Otter’s Club) has featured the most in Indian cinema. He had moved into the house in 1960, soon after ‘Anuradha’, the successful remake of ‘Madam Bovary’, with Leela Naidu and Balraj Sahni. The shoestring budgets on which he made his films on the one hand, and the debilitating Govt. condition which used to frequently immobilise him since the late 1970s resulted in his making a series ‘home-bound’ films like ‘Golmaal’ and ‘Khubsoorat’ in which the main set was his own house. There was a period when, for some five years at a stretch, every time you visited the house you could lose your way as major portions of it would have been remodelled for a set…

…This is the house where on any day you would bump into Sachin Dev Burman coming in with his starched white Banglaa dhoti or a young Amitabh and Jaya in deep conversation or a Ritwick Ghatak sprawled on a bed or a Salil Choudhury and Utpal Dutt exchanging notes or a Rekha as she demonstrated some aerobic exercise or a rahi Masoom Raza and Rajinder Singh Bedi sharing Urdu ‘shairs’ or a Deena Pathak re-living her lines (on dancer Chandralekha’s request) from the famous IPTA play ‘Jasma Odhan’…

…On occasion, there would be Harindranath Chattopadhaya walking in from ‘Kismet Apartments’ across the road with harmonium slung on his shoulder and an impromptu ‘mehfil’ would begin. Harinda (Baba to all of us) had the most extraordinary repertoire of the classical, the frivolous and the political/revolutionary songs…

…For the past two years we have been watching as ‘Anupama’ was demolished and an eight-storied flat has come up there completely blocking Hrishada’s northern and western view and eliminating all possibility of a return of the crows to those windows. From the time the demolition began and earthmovers rolled in excavating the site for the foundation of the flat, I have been photographing the process every four or five months that I make it to Mumbai from Chennai. It has been like an entombing of memories. Eventually even Hrishida, frail and in agony that he is in, could not take it any more and has now moved to the south-side bedroom, which is like a return to the breeze and light. His greatest excitement is to have someone stopping by to discuss national politics. His favourite subjects with me are ‘failures’ of the ‘Left’ and the shenanigans of the Chief Minister Jayalalitha. But mostly he is alone. “All my friends are gone. No one comes to meet me now,” he says with a tinge of uncharacteristic bitterness.

He also makes it a point in the evenings to get himself carried to his balcony from where he looks out on to the bustling Joggers’ park below and, beyond it, the flaming sun as it settles soundlessly into the Arabian Sea. And, somewhere in the distance, from someone’s Sony-Max channel, you can hear the strains of that song from the 1970 hit ‘Anand’, “Kahin door jab din dhal jaye….”

Celebrate Bandra Souvenir 2003

Bandra’s Father of The Art Movement
Khorshed Gandhy

Well known as the founder of Gallery Chemould, Kekoo Gandhy participated in the modern art movement long before Art got its due recognition. Kekoo Gandhy’s involvement with contemporary Indian Art grew almost at the same time as the emergence of the Progressive Artists group in the late forties. It was a time when there was no Jehangir Art Gallery and the venue for the artists and art lovers was the Artists Centre, the small first floor rented room at Rampart Row. It became an important hub where such landmark exhibitions as Jamini Roy’s very first one man show (not in Calcutta but in Bombay!) was held and an exhibition of photographs of Henri Cartier Bresson, Husain, than a struggling artists, quite fresh on the art scene of Bombay Art Society, as the Artists Centre was better known…. 

Celebrate Bandra Souvenir 2005

Edited by Savita Vij