Mumbiram was born and raised in Pune, which is a historical town situated on the confluence of two rivers that originate in the Western Ghats, the Mula and the Mutha. Mumbiram had a seamless symbiotic connect with the rivers of his town. That is entirely befitting his mood of a an artist who rose out of the classical culture of India. Many great events and personalities of India manifested along rivers that played important part in the cultural mood of those places.
The event that left the biggest impact on the young artist’s mind was the deluge that inundated much of Pune when two dams on the rivers broke in the monsoon of 1961. Mumbiram’s artist-grandfather lived on land that was less than a hundred metres from the Mula river and his house was submerged under several feet of water and mud. 15 year old Mumbiram along with his mother Anjanibai undertook the operation to rescue as much of his grandfather’s life’s creativity as was possible. It certainly was an event that created great impact and made a lifelong bonding of young Mumbiram with his grandfather.
Two years later Mumbiram was a student at the engineering college that was created right at the confluence of the Mula and Mutha rivers. Mumbiram has written elsewhere how he would spend hours sitting at the boat club on the river bank dreaming about everything except engineering. Many years later when Mumbiram came back from America the riverside was his favourite haunt away from the hustle and bustle of the busy city.
