Jeejeebhoy Rustomjee Byramjee JRB Jeejeebhoy; right Murali Ranganathan

But he never put his writings together in a book. They remained as articles, or letters to the editor, which by nature are ephemeral," adding that his biggest challenge was to track information on the man himself. The book comes with a solid introduction yet Ranganathan says, "We still have no clue about how he spent his 75 years."

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Drawing from The Bombay Administrative Report 1872-1873, the book states that on November 20, 1872 an exclusive durbar for the public reception of chiefs and sirdars of the Bombay Presidency was held. A gathering of this scale had never taken place in India.

In 1896, Bombay was struck down by plague, which Jeejeebhoy writes was a blessing in disguise with the municipality disbursing about half a crore. "Even Malabar Hill, where everyone who lived in pretty houses...was not exempt from these death-spreading rodents." They fled the city in large numbers.

Jeejeebhoy published three books and nearly 50 articles in papers including The Times of India and Bombay Chronicle, as well as special issues for Sanj Vartaman and Kaiser-i-Hind. Ranganathan visited the Central Library in Baroda — the sole place that bears evidence of his writings in the Sanj Varthaman.

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