Sarojini Naidu had a permanent suite at The Taj Mahal Hotel, where many international celebrities including Somerset Maugham and John Barrymore visited her. Mahatma Gandhi once walked up the hotel’s grand staircase to address a gathering.

When Lady Mountbatten first came to India (she wasn’t even ‘Lady Mountbatten’ then) she was practically penniless and stayed at The Taj. The hotel remained a favourite with her, and many years later, when here husband became Viceroy of India, the two would sneak away to spend some quiet time together there. Rati Jinnah, wife of Mohammad Ali Jinnah, passed away at The Taj.

Director Zafar Hai recounts these, and other fascinating stories, that make their way into a film that celebrates the centenary of the south Mumbai hotel. Simply titled The Taj of Apollo Bunder, the anecdotal film – that premiered in Mumbai at the NCPA on September 16, 2003 – pays tribute to the life and times of the historic luxury hotel.

“The Taj is a unique institution,” says Hai, the director of such films as the 1990 Merchant Ivory production, The Perfect Murder. “Very few hotels in the world, if any, have witnessed the kind of history that it has.” 

Of all the hotel’s stories that Hai now knows, the one he pinpoints as the most memorable is about a Russian entertainer and his “extraordinarily beautiful” wife.

Among the many men who fell in love with her, was a director of the hotel. When he found his love was unrequited, he jumped out of a window. A guest at the hotel called the reception to say the director had passed his window on the way down!

“Roshan Seth plays the walls of The Taj,” Hai continues, “and his role is developed as a character with specific traits, not just as a narrator. He is fussy about details, slightly flirtatious and invisible to everyone except the audience.” Seth’s character takes one on a journey through time, acquainting the audience with the history that lurks in every corridor of the hotel.

Dressed in tails, a fresh carnation in his buttonhole, Seth and the crew shot the film when the hotel was packed to capacity in November and December last year.

“There was an English lord staying there at the time,” says Hai, “and he would see Roshan in full costume passing through the hotel everyday. Finally, he asked him, 'You’ve been dressed like this for days. When is the date and time of your marriage'?”

The film also features the Maharana of Udaipur Arvind Singh Mewar and Siddhi Kumari, who recount the story of a lavish buffet hosted in 1917 by 200 Indian princes in honour of their ancestor Maharaja Ganga Singhji of Bikaner.