Biography

- Manohar Malgaonkar

Every year before its Diwali Holidays, the J.J. School of Art held its annual Ball. That year 1957 Mario Miranda and his Goan friends went to it. Habiba Hydari’s ‘Teenage Gang’ was also there in full strength. The two groups met and mingled for the first time.

Here at a ‘tag’ dance Lucio Miranda happened to be dancing with Habiba when Mario tagged him. That was when the two first met. After that, it just so happened that no one else tagged Mario, so as they danced on they also got to know one another. As the evening ended, they all agreed to meet at Berry’s a popular café in the Fort area.

It was at this and similar sessions that followed, that new and lasting friendships were made, and at least one of these friendships would end up in matrimony. As will be seen Habiba Hydari and Mario Miranda would become united in wedlock five years later. It was a long courtship during which they were separated from one another for long periods, both pursuing their disparate careers.

Within a few months of their meeting, Habiba’s father Iqbal Hydari was transferred to a higher post in Assam, and had to relinquish his Bombay flat. Ordinarily, she too would have gone off with him to Assam but, reluctant to interrupt her studies at the Sir J.J. School of Art, she decided to stay on in Bombay where of course, she had to make her own living arrangements. It was while she was living on her own in Bombay that her friendship with Mario matured.