Moments of Epiphany: Bombay/ Mumbai – The City of Dreams
Mumbai skyline
Each destination was interesting and exciting – something new to experience! From outstanding services and attention to detail, our itinerary was perfect. The transfer services and airport representatives were greatly helpful, as were the calls from Praveen. Harsh took us to areas of Mumbai unseen by most. His knowledge and enthusiasm, his warmth are outstanding! We can’t wait to plan our next trip and are glad to be working with Travel Scope.
Herbert and Ellen Mayer
As a tribute to the recent award won by Travel Scope from the Taj Hotels in support of the Taj Grand Palaces, we are dedicating this month’s blog to Mumbai – a city close to the Travel Scope team’s heart and home to the flagship of the Taj Group, The Taj Mahal Palace (a hotel close to our hearts too).
Where dreams are made and broken, and the backyards of mansions are slums. Where the rich and poor walk shoulder to shoulder, and a colourful history collides head-on with a kaleidoscopic future. Where the wadis of yesterday are the condos of tomorrow and glass and steel and chrome rub cheeks with Art Deco, Indo Saracenic, and Gothic. Where the ticker-tape is the zip-line through the concrete jungle, and the rise and fall of the stock market marks its pulse. Where the box-office booms and busts and the harbor fills with ships from every port.
Mumbai Local Train
Twenty million people (and counting) walking the streets in rhythm.
The singular pace of sticky molasses on the surface belies the quick-sand beneath. Bom Baia, Bombay, Mumbai… she’s not the mother of all metropolises for nothing.
It’s 5 AM and you find yourself on a brisk walk with a cool Arabian Sea breeze in your face and the first rays of dawn lighting up the city. And suddenly the quiet of the morning breaks into a raucous cacophony as you enter Sassoon Docks and watch the first catch of the day being brought in.
This is the core of Koli culture, the original inhabitants of this island city whose patron saint, Mumba Devi, gives Mumbai its name. Luminous gold earrings glint in the morning sun as the Koli women haul in the first catch of the day, and these women of this community who are the backbone of the fishing industry. With all nine yards of their Maharashtrian sarees tucked firmly between their legs like a pair of shorts, they haul the fish off the boats in assembly line fashion and take it to market.
A Fish Auction at sasoon Docks
Sassoon Dock was built and continues to bear the name of David Sassoon, a Baghdadi Jewish immigrant who gave much back the community of the city where he made his fortune. One of many who came to the City of Dreams and made it.
Sassoon Docks Copy
Five hundred years ago, these were seven islands, and the Koli tribe were their only inhabitants. Then the sea-faring Portuguese came and found it a good place to dock their ships, and brought Jesus to save the fishing community. And so today, we still have a distinct Portuguese community, a Portuguese church, a marked Portuguese influence throughout our seven islands, and call our bread pao.
When the Portuguese Empire decided that marrying into their rivals, the British Royal family, might make a smoother transition in the subcontinent, it wasn’t Catherine’s great beauty (or lack of it) nor her grace that convinced Charles II to marry her – but the untapped economic opportunity that the seven islands of the Bom Baia (The Good Bay) afforded the British East India Company. And so Bombay (Bom Baia – anglicized) was born.
The Gateway of India was built in 1921 at Apollo Bunder to welcome Charles V and Queen Mary on their maiden voyage to the Jewel of the British Empire.
Gateway of India
But up to 1900, no Indians were allowed into the portals of British hotels, so a Parsi industrialist named Jamshetji Tata, mulled over the idea of building a hotel where all were welcome. (Visit our Unwind/Bedding Down Section on our facebook page to learn more about this iconic hotel)
Mumbai Taj
As the city awakes, stroll past the graceful Victorian buildings, the old world Town Hall, and Victoria Terminus, which disgorges humanity through its doors every hour as millions of people commute to South Mumbai. If you’re early enough you will see the first round of the Mumbai Samachar and Times of India newspapers being distributed.
Newspaper Sorting Copy
Head to the hub of the city – it’s markets. The area is named Crawford Market, for the bustling fruit and vegetable wholesale bazaar that bears its name, but we take you a step further to the Mangaldas Cloth Market. Dive into the little lanes where yards of gorgeous weaves and beautiful yarns sit in colourful stacks. From cottons to silks and tye-dye to paisley, scarves, stoles, sarees and borders – ladies, bring your bags.
Greens Market Copy
Take a seat on the cotton mattress in one of the little stores as the shop-keeper skillfully drapes the fabrics over you and convinces you to buy much more than you really should with his smooth patter.
Mumbai came into being with the textile boom of the twenties and the mills became the back-bone of Bombay. As redevelopment sweeps the city, it’s face changes at lightening speed as new neighborhoods open up to the endless thirst for real-estate.
Step inside one of these erstwhile mills in the central part of the city and discover edgy outlets for cutting-edge cuisine, avant garde art, swanky shopping, high fashion and design, music studios and yes, even Mumbai’s first micro-brewery. Food is serious business in Mumbai and gastronomists are often amazed and delighted by the range of tastes that cross your palette. (Visit our Food Bytes section to learn more).
Dosa Bus
Corn on the cob Mumbai
As you step out of the chaos of Bhendi Bazaar and onto the side-street that is popularly known as Mutton Street, you will suddenly enter an area of benevolent calm and soft-spoken shop keepers will smile beguilingly as you roam through the lane filled with tiny shop windows selling antiques, vintage reproductions and simply the unusual – from tiny steam irons used in the old days by gentlemen to iron out the wrinkles after they’d worn their suits, to caricatures of Air India’s iconic Maharaja mascot, and brocade and embroidered borders which have survived the disintegration of the saree to which they once belonged, and vintage Bollywood film posters.
Bollywood, the world’s largest film industry by the sheer volume of films produced, is the elusive pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for many star-stricken aspirants, day-dreamers, and artistes. While in Chor Bazaar, step inside one of the little shops that is home to vintage Bollywood memorabilia and be entertained by these gentlemen for whom film is a passion. (Click here for a YouTube Snippet on one of these passionate collectors – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awdo-cIXgi8)
To know is to do, and at Travel Scope, we believe that you need to live it to believe it – so we let you shake a leg and let your hair down by teaching you how to dance with our expert choreographers, many of whom train the stars for the hip-wiggling that you see on screen!
Like the plaster that peels off many of its buildings, Mumbai has many layers and if these walls could talk, it would take several lifetimes to relive its story. But allow yourself to scratch its surface with us, and we guarantee that it will get under your skin and make you want to come back again and again.
Landsend the Chambers_ GPc
