'You can take the boy out of Bombay; you can't take Bombay out of the boy, you know.': (Salman Rushdie)
'The choking humidity makes amphibians of us all, in Bombay, breathing water in air': (Gregory David Roberts)
'The most appalling (city) ....of either hemisphere': (Aldous Huxley)
Our last sight-seeing day and what was obviously going to be a whistle-stop tour of Mumbai: nowhere near long enough to get any real appreciation of this city. Twenty days ago when we had landed in Mumbai for a few hours before flying off to Kalkata we'd briefly seen a microcosm of the enormous disparities in Indian society: the hyper-modern, cosmopolitan airport heaving with a myriad of travellers wealthy enough to be there; and the shocking sight of an enormous, sprawling settlement of the poor (though perhaps not the poorest as they probably worked in some way in the airport) living in makeshift huts, many equipped with rooftop satellite dishes, almost on the runway. Today, enjoyable as it was, was never going to give us any greater insight of this city.
Our last sight-seeing day and what was obviously going to be a whistle-stop tour of Mumbai: nowhere near long enough to get any real appreciation of this city. Twenty days ago when we had landed in Mumbai for a few hours before flying off to Kalkata we'd briefly seen a microcosm of the enormous disparities in Indian society: the hyper-modern, cosmopolitan airport heaving with a myriad of travellers wealthy enough to be there; and the shocking sight of an enormous, sprawling settlement of the poor (though perhaps not the poorest as they probably worked in some way in the airport) living in makeshift huts, many equipped with rooftop satellite dishes, almost on the runway. Today, enjoyable as it was, was never going to give us any greater insight of this city.
HISTORY:
Mumbai is built on what was once an archipelago of 7 islands and it is not known exactly when these islands were first inhabited. Nor is the derivation of its name certain; some sources argue it comes from the goddess Mumba, the patron goddess of the small Koli fishing communities who inhabited the islands.
In 1534 the land was ceded to Portugal who, in turn, handed it to England in 1661. Bombay's safe harbour and strategic commercial position attracted the interest of the East India Company who in 1668 leased it from England for a pittance and went on to develop the city as the capital of their business. The economy continued to flourish fuelled by the Bombay Cotton Boom (following the cotton crisis in America after the Civil War) and the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 and the construction of enormous docks.
Bombay was at the forefront of the Independence struggle and the Gateway of India was the site of the last contingent of British troops to leave India in 1948.
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| Gateway of India |
Since Independence Mumbai has prospered as India's commercial capital and the population has grown ten-fold to more than 16 million but the city has also been plagued by communal infighting, fuelled by increasing numbers of immigrants and the resultant overcrowding, and outside terrorist attacks including bomb blasts in August 2003 which killed 107 tourists next to the Gateway of India and the horrific attacks of November 26 2008 when a group of rampaging gunmen ran amok across the city killing 172 people including at the Taj Mahal Hotel.
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| The rebuilt Taj Mahal Hotel |
ELEPHANTA ISLAND:
This morning we were to visit Elephanta island, an hour's ride northeast across Mumbai harbour to see the island's cave temples and caves carved out of the rock between 450 and 750 AD.
Known in ancient times as Gharapuri, the name Elephanta Island was given by 16th century Portuguese explorers after seeing a monolithic basalt sculpture of an elephant found near the entrance. They decided to take it home but ended up dropping it into the sea because their chains were not strong enough.
So it was off to the Gateway of India ........
......... where launches leave every 30 minutes.
Once off the boat we got on a narrow-gauge toy train from the dock to the base of the steps leading to the caves.
Although we'd got one of the earliest ferries, there were plenty of visitors on this Saturday morning.
Steps lead up to the caves and along the path hawkers sell an array of souvenirs. We decided to have a quick look on the way up and do our shopping later on the way down when we bartered some lovely pictures. There are also stalls to buy food and drinks, best avoided not least because some of the group had had to miss out on the later excursions and were seriously unwell as a result of the pollution and of ignoring warnings about eating 'off piste'. And, of course, there were hordes of the ubiquitous pesky monkeys.
CAVE 1:
The main cave is 39.63 metres square. It has several entrances, the main one being unassumingly small
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| Linga shrine showing guardian figures or dwarpalas |
As well as Rudy we had a local guide who was incredibly well-informed and interesting but the sheer wealth of information was unfortunately too much to take it all in and left us feeling the day had been less enjoyable than it might have been. The best we could do was to abandon trying to remember everything, go with the flow, listen to what she was telling us and take any photos which especially interested us (which inevitably meant that it was well-nigh impossible to identify each individual scene later) before rushing off to keep up with the group.
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| Shiva as Nataraja, god of dance |
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| Shiva as Yogishvara, god of Yoga |
HERITAGE WALKING TOUR OF FORT MUMBAI AREA:
A couple of hours later we were back on the bus and heading into the city for a walk with Rudy and our guide around some magnificent architectural evidence of 19th century British power and wealth in the Raj.
It's only on compiling this blog that I appreciated just how much we saw on this walk!!
Fort Mumbai is the Business District in Mumbai, getting its name from the defensive fort built by the British East India Company around Bombay Castle.
Rajabai Clock Tower:
Designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott and modelled on Big Ben in London, the clock tower was built between 1869 and 1878. A portion of the cost was donated by a prosperous broker on condition that the tower was named after his mother who was blind. Legend says that the evening bell of the tower helped her to know the time to eat her dinner without anyone 's help.
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| Our brilliant guides |
University of Mumbai (Fort Campus):
The University of Bombay was established in 1857 at the Fort Campus after the presentation of a petition from the Bombay Association to the British colonial government in India, and was modelled on the University of London. Teaching departments, research disciplines and post-graduate courses wee only introduced in 1904.
The Bombay High Court, one of the oldest High Courts in India, was built from 1871 to 1878 in Gothic style modelled on a German castle. It is constructed using black stone with octagonal towers, and on top of the building are statues of Justice and Mercy upholding the Indian law.
Being in the heart of Mumbai's business and financial area we wrongly assumed that that accounted for the name of this building we walked past. In fact it is named after a wealthy 19th century Parsi community leader, philanthropist and industrialist.
Built in 1887 to commemorate the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria and opened by the Queen. The Terminus resembles St Pancras station in London. Designed by F.W. Stevens, it blends Victorian Gothic Revival architecture in India with themes derived from Indian traditional architecture. It is still used by more than 3 million commuters daily.
SO after 21 extremely busy and interesting days we had come to the end of our time in India. Without doubt we would look back on it as one of, if not the most interesting and enjoyable of our travels.
Although the tour had been put together to mark 70 years of Indian independence and advertised as an opportunity to discover the heritage of the British Raj, it had not slavishly kept to that remit and had been so much more than a catalogue of Victorian triumphalist architecture.
We'd been blessed with Rudy, an excellent guide who daily showed us his ready wit and good humour, knowledge, and sheer determination to solve every problem we presented him with (be it broken arms; secreted alcohol discovered in a routine hand-luggage check at an airport, confiscated despite all his best efforts; rowdy children and their disinterested parents who were making our excursion less enjoyable and needed - and got - a good and loud ticking-off; a bribe to get back Sue's bag that had been taken by a group of porters at the station).
The stuff of so many future happy memories.
What more could we want from a holiday??
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