What’s so special about Mumbai?

Posted on August 16, 2021 by memoriesandsuch

Yesterday was India’s 75th Independence Day and inspired by the post on Singapore last week, I decided to do a similar one for India and specifically about my hometown of Mumbai.

I’ve done my home state of Maharashtra and Mumbai in my Travel Bucket List series and the links are there for anyone to explore more about the place I grew up in. So here are some things which are unique to my home. Some may be common knowledge, while others may come as a surprise.

Mumbai is today a peninsula, but this was not so. It was earlier an archipelago of seven different islands which were reclaimed to become the core city of Mumbai. The islands which were reclaimed were the Isle of Bombay, Colaba, Old Woman’s Island or Little Colaba, Mahim, Mazagaon, Parel and Worli. It took six decades to merge the islands into one landmass, starting in 1784 and finishing in 1845. Today, any place beyond Mahim on the western side, Sion on the central side and Koliwada on the eastern or harbour side are known as the suburbs.

The ubiquetious auto rickshaw is not allowed to ply their services within the original city, that they can only serve residents beyond Mahim on the western side, Sion on the central side and from Chunabhatti on the harbour side. Why this is so I am not too sure, but I assume that when this rule was made, it was probably due to a variety of factors, including the fact that the original city roads were narrower, autos were light vehicles and may cause more traffic jams or perhaps it made more sense at that time to have autos cater to the suburbs where the transport system was not yet so fine-tuned.

Mumbai is named after a local temple deity, Mumbadevi, whose temple still stands today in Bhuleshwar. She is the patron goddess of the kolis, the fishing community who were the original inhabitants of the city.

But before it was called Mumbai, it was Bombay and regular readers know I still use Bombay interchangeably with Mumbai. Long-term residents still use Bombay and this name is courtesy of the Portuguese. During their rule, it was called Bom Bahia which means a good bay as Mumbai has a natural harbor on its eastern side.

Mumbai was part of the dowry of Catherine of Braganza when she married the English, King Charles II. Charles II received the ports of Tangier and the Seven Islands of Bombay as part of the dowry which he then leased to the British East India Company for an annual rent of 10 Pounds. For over 300 years the city was known as Bombay, until 1995 when the ruling regional political party Shiv Sena changed the name to Mumbai.

Mumbai is home to three UNESCO World Heritage Sites, the Elephanta Caves, The Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus, formerly known as Victoria Terminus, and the city’s distinctive ensemble of Victorian and Art Deco buildings.

The library of the Asiatic Society of Mumbai, housed in the iconic Town Hall building in Fort, houses what is considered to be one of the only two original manuscripts of the Divine Comedy written by Dante Alighieri in the 14^th century.

The 61m high Gilbert Hill in Andheri was formed when molten lava was squeezed out of the earth’s clefts, and is about 66 million years old. The hill was declared a heritage structure in 2007. There are two two Hindu temples atop the hill which have fantastic panoramic views of the city’s western suburbs.

Mumbai was where the first train in India commenced operations. On April 16 1853, India’s first passenger train ran between Bori Bunder which later became the Victoria Terminus and then the Chatrapati Shivaji Terminus in Bombay to Thane, a distance of 34 km. The 14-carriage train was hauled by three steam locomotives, Sahib, Sindh and Sultan and carried 400 people. It was built and operated by the Great Indian Peninsula Railway.

The Bhor Ghat section of the line between Bombay and Pune, a mountain passage located between Palasdari and Khandala situated on the crest of the Western Ghats was completed by Alice Tredwell, an English railway contractor and photographer in 1863.

The first electric train in India ran on 3 February 1925, between Bombay’s Victoria Terminus and Kurla Harbour. Later, the electric line was extended to Igatpuri and then to Pune.

The Mumbai train network is the busiest in the world, carrying nearly eight million passengers daily, packed to almost three times their capacity over a network that spans 465 km. During the rush hours, each train carriage is rammed with around 500 people, yet they were only designed to carry 188 people. Thats roughly 14-16 people per square metre, double the recommended figure. The rail staff have coined a term for this phenomenon: Super-Dense Crush Load.

Mumbai also home to the most obsolete electric rail chain in India, which was installed in 1925. This means that instead of there being a third rail on the ground powering the trains, the cables are overhead. This is also one of causes of deaths among passengers that sit atop overcrowded carriages.

The first bullet train in India will be launched in 2022 and will run between Mumbai and Ahmedabad.

Mumbai’s Juhu Aerodrome was the first airport in India founded in 1928 as India’s first civil aviation airport. Juhu served as the city’s primary airport during and up to World War II. In 1948, commercial operations were moved to the much larger RAF Santacruz which is today the Chatrapati Shivaji International Airport, built 2 km east of Juhu aerodrome during the war.

In October 1932, the industrialist JRD Tata landed at the Juhu aerodrome, inaugurating India’s first scheduled commercial mail service. This service, between Karachi and Bombay was the inaugural flight of Tata Air Services which started as an airmail carrier within India after winning a contract with Imperial Airways.

The first person to own a car in India was Sir Jamshetji Tata, the founder of the Tata empire in 1898, the grandfather of the man who would go on to build the first Indian indigenous car. While the first car to come to India in 1897 was owned by an English man Mr Foster of Crompton Greaves. The following year, Jamshedji Tata became the first Indian to own a car.

The first motor bus route in India can also be attributed to Bombay. The route was started on July 15, 1926, and ran between Afghan Church and Crawford Market. The bus fare for the journey was four annas, 25 paise or quarter of a rupee.

Mumbai has a coastline of about 150 kilometres and not many know about this. From Colaba to Marine Drive to the Worli Sea Face to beaches of Dadar, and beyond, Mumbai’s coastline is vastly underrated and its potential needs to be tapped.

One of Mumbai’s best kept secrets are the flocks of flamingos who make the city their temporary home during the winter season, usually from October/November to March/April. They can be found in the stretch from the Thane Creek to the Sewri jetty area till the Elephanta caves area, a 15-20 km stretch. One of the easiest areas to access is the Sewri marshland area, where photographers and nature lovers can see and photograph them. The best time to watch these birds is during the early morning time and a few hours before and after a high tide.

Covering an area of 104 sq km, the Sanjay Gandhi National Park in Borivali is the largest park in the world located within city limits. This dense forested park is home to a resident tiger population, over 2000 year-old Buddhist caves, two large lakes and so much more. Its lush green cover counters much of the air pollution in Mumbai, leading to it being referred to as the lungs of the city. With a history dating back to the 4^th century BC, the park is home to 274 species of birds, 35 species of mammals, 170 species of butterflies and more than 1300 species of trees.

One of the newer symbols of the city, the Bandra-Worli Sea Link, officially known as the Rajiv Gandhi Sea Link is a 5.6 km long, 8-lane wide bridge that links Bandra in the western suburbs with Worli in south Mumbai. It is a cable-stayed bridge with pre-stressed concrete-steel viaducts on either side. The bridge is made up of cement and steel wire that equal to the girth of the earth and was made with 90,000 tonnes of cement and steel wire.

Mumbai is the most populous city in India with a population of exceeding 23 million and the sixth most populous metropolis in the world. The city is so densely populated that there is only 1.1 sq m of open space available for Mumbaikars. It is the most cramped city on the planet with less space per person than in New York, Mexico City, Shanghai, Hong Kong and even Tokyo.

Also known as the entertainment capital of the country, Mumbai is home to the Hindi film industry known as Bollywood. It is also where India’s first feature film, the silent film, Raja Harishchandra was released in 1913. The film, produced and directed by Dadasaheb Phalke premiered at the Olympia Theatre in Bombay on 21 April 1913, and had its theatrical release on 3 May 1913 at the Coronation Cinematograph and Variety Hall, Girgaon. It was a commercial success and laid the foundation for the film industry in the country.

The Bombay Stock Exchange or BSE is the first ever stock exchange in Asia. It was established in 1875 and is the first in the country to be granted permanent recognition under the Securities Contract Regulation Act, 1956.

Mumbai is the financial and commercial capital of India because it houses many important financial institutions like the Reserve Bank of India, the Bombay Stock Exchange, the National Stock Exchange as well is the headquarters of many national corporations and the India office of international corporations.

Mumbaikars are also the top tax payers in India with the city consistently being the city which is the highest contributer to the national exchequer. The city contributes almost a third of all tax collected in India.

Mumbai is also considered the wealthiest city in the country and is well-known for it’s stark contrast between the rich and poor, both often living cheek by jowl. While there are several large slums and chawls, The city also houses the highest number of millionaires and billionaires in the country, making it the richest city by average estimates.

The Taj Mahal Palace in Colaba is India’s first ever 5 star hotel. Founded in 1903, the hotel was the first in India to have electricity, Turkish baths, and German elevators, among other features. It also had India’s first all-day restaurant, as well as the country’s first discotheque. The hotel is built in the Saracenic Revival style and is located next to the Gateway of India. The hotel is believed to have been built back to front, was founded by Jamshetji Nusserwanji Tata and the story goes that Tata was denied admission to the Pyrke’s Apollo Hotel then situated close to the Taj and decided to build a hotel in which Indians can enter. Today, the Taj is one of India’s best five star hotel chains.

Mumbai is one of the most helpful cities of India. Even though the city is known to have a callous attitude and there are many instances of not knowing neighbours, when the push comes to a shove, Mumbaikars are a helpful lot. Even floods, bombings, terrorist attacks don’t faze us and the helpful city goes out of their way to shelter and feed those who are stranded. I have many stories of this attitude, both personal and anecdotal which proves this adage right.

Mumbai is the birthplace of many internationally renowned authors. Rudyard Kipling, author of many children’s books including The Jungle Book and Kim was born in Bombay. Kipling’s birth home on the campus of the J.J. School of Art was for many years used as the dean’s residence. Although a cottage bears a plaque noting it as his birth site, the original one may have been torn down and replaced decades ago. Salman Rushdie, famous for the Satanic Verses and one of my favorite books, Midnight’s Children was born in Bombay as was Rohinton Mistry, the author of Tales from Firoza Baugh and Such a Long Journey.

The dabbawalas of Mumbai are internationally known with a system that is even being studied at institutions like Harvard. The famous century-old network of dabbawalas is a lunchbox delivery system, unique only to Mumbai who deliver hot lunches from homes and restaurants to people at work. The lunchboxes are picked up in the late morning, delivered predominantly using bicycles and railway trains, and returned empty in the afternoon. They are also used by meal suppliers in Mumbai, who pay them to ferry lunchboxes with ready-cooked meals from central kitchens to customers and back. More than 5000 dabbawallas split into 200 teams of 25 people each and manage everything, from pick-up to delivery. The enormous complex network is so well maintained with a near-perfect success rate, that the Forbes magazine has awarded the network with its highest rating, Sigma Six, a rating shared with corporate giants like General Electric and Motorola, which signifies less than one error per one million transactions. A colour-coding system identifies the destination and recipient and each dabbawala is required to contribute a minimum capital in kind, in the form of two bicycles, a wooden crate for the tiffins, white cotton kurta-pyjamas, and the white Gandhi topi or cap. Each month there is a division of the earnings of each unit and fines are imposed for alcohol, tobacco, being out of uniform, and absenteeism. A collecting dabbawala, usually on bicycle, collects dabbas either from a worker’s home or from the dabba makers. As many of the carriers are of limited literacy with the average literacy of Dabbawallahs that of 8^th grade, the dabbas or lunch boxes have some sort of distinguishing mark on them, such as a colour or group of symbols.

Something even I was not aware, but now that I know, doesn’t seem far fetched is that Mumbai ranks among the top five in the largest number of stray dogs in the world. And because of this, the city has one of the highest numbers of cases of people being bittem by these dogs and due to which all hospitals are equipped with rabies related treatments.

Mumbai is also home to the world’s second most expensive property, Antilla. The house, which is the home of industrialist Mukesh Ambani and his family. At 27 stories, 173 metres tall, over 37,000 sq m, and with amenities such as three helipads, air traffic control, a 168-car garage, a ballroom, 9 high speed elevators, a 50-seat theatre, terrace gardens, swimming pool, spa, health centre, a temple, and a snow room that spits out snowflakes from the walls, the skyscraper-mansion is one of world’s largest and most elaborate private homes. The architectural design of Antilia has been fashioned along the lines of the lotus and the sun. The top six floors of the building have been set aside as the private full-floor residential area. It is also designed to withstand a magnitude 8 earthquake. It is valued at more than $1.2 billion, deemed to be the world’s second most valuable residential property, after British crown property Buckingham Palace, and the world’s most valuable private residence.

Imagica, a 130-acre theme park in Khopoli on the Mumbai-Pune highway is India’s largest theme park. The park has an estimated daily capacity of 15,000 visitors and to date, has hosted over 5.2 million visitors. The park has theme, water, and snow parks.

32 billionaires live in Mumbai, with a collective net worth of US$115.1B. This places the city in sixth position on the world’s list of cities with the highest number of billionaires.

While Mumbai may be the wealthiest city in the country, it also houses the Asia’s largest slum, Dharavi which houses about a million people. And Dharavi isn’t just Asia’s largest slum, but it also happens to be one of the most pricey with houses here likely to cost at least Rs 300,000 or about USD 4,000. Combined with Kurla-Ghatkopar, Mankhurd-Govandi, and Bahndup-Mulund slums, they account for more than half of the city’s population and it is estimated about 62% of the population lives in slums.

I hope you enjoyed reading more about my beloved city as much as I enjoyed writing about it. And some of these facts were unique enough that once the travel starts, you will make a trip to visit Mumbai. Actually, this blog post is making me very nostalgic about the city and I want to make a trip there as soon as possible.

School Stories: Sports Day

Posted on July 19, 2019 by memoriesandsuch

One more story from my school days. Last week I was speaking with GG and BB and we started talking about sports days in school. BB’s school usually alternates between sports day and cross country running every other year and so I shared some stories about sports days in my school.

In my school, sports day usually happened in the second term, which would be after the winter holidays (you could not schedule anything before that because of the Mumbai monsoon) so it would be sometime in December/January.

Our primary school races are the standard ones and happen without much fanfare. It’s the Secondary school that has all the fun in my opinion. I’ve mentioned before how our houses are allocated and during the main sports day, one half of the stadium is split into four parts – each section for a house. So we generally sit in our house section and not with friends, because that day it’s house loyalty before family and friends.

The sports day would usually be on a Sunday and would start around noon. Once we reached secondary school, we would go on our own and my parents would come by later to pick us up. It’s usually a festive air there with hundreds of school girls screaming and shouting.

There’s fierce competition to see which house comes first and a blackboard in the centre of the field will usually have the current point tally going on. The prize for the best house, in addition to the champions trophy is the honour to lead the march past at the end of the sports day and this would be fought relentlessly.

The house I was allocated to, Shenaz or the Green House used to always win the championship and we used to lead the March past each year. I can only remember one year we did not. I must have been in grade 5 then and was the first time in the Secondary bleacher when this happened. What happened was unprecedented in the history of the school. Three houses were joint first and since three houses can’t march together, they had to toss and Godafried or the Red House won the toss! I can still see the red house captain coming excitedly to the stands to the house teacher and shouting that they were going to lead the march past while our captain walked by crying. We were second in the march past that year.

In the last few years in school, I used to get pulled into the march past contingent. We used to march wrongly while practicing thinking we will be kicked out, but no such luck for us! Being in the march past meant that we had to wait all the way till the sports day ended and could not sneak out earlier.

But it also meant a month or so of missing the last few periods in school going for march past practise in the garden behind the school. As I type this, I can hear the commands in head and the one arm length we had to stand behind each other. We used to wear a strip of ribbon in the house colour on the sides of our white shorts (we were one of those rare schools at that time who had to wear white shorts for PE and sports) and a cap in the house colour.

I just checked my school website and Shernaz is still continuing to rule, they are still overall champions, though some of the uniforms we used to play in has changed over the years. The march past is no longer in shorts, but in black long pants and they wear a house tee shirt over it, while we used to wear our school uniform shirt. The cap still remains and the school head girls and captains and vice captains all wear black long pants and a blazer (with the captains and vice captains also wearing the house cap). During the the I was in school, they all used to only wear their usual school uniform. And we also have a school band now! That looks so much fun, wish that was there when we were studying too.

The march past would be like in major sporting events. The head would be the school head girl carrying the school flag with her deputies behind her followed by the junior head girl and her deputies. Then we would have the first contingent which would have one girl (usually a small grade 5 girl) carrying the house name, followed by the house captain with the house flag and her deputies behind her. Behind them would be 30 girls marching in three columns. This would be followed by the house which came second and then the third house and the last house bringing up the rear. We would make one circuit of the stadium and the guest of honour would get the salute after which would be the prize distribution ceremony including that for the best march past contingent (which I can’t remember us ever winning). We would go home late evening, tired but happy with the day. The next day would be a holiday from school which was very warmly welcomed by all.

As with other school memories, this post brought many smiles to me as I went back decades to relive my school days. For more stories about my school, click here and here

Yearning for school – Part 2

Posted on February 8, 2019 by memoriesandsuch

The other day, GG and I were checking out various junior colleges where she may be interested and we came across the house system there. She was very happy on seeing this since secondary schools here have now abolished the house system and it’s more interclass competitions.

So I started talking to her about the houses in my school and that talk is the root behind today’s post. I have written previously about my alma mater and thought this is a good time to share more about my school.

In the secondary section, we were all divided into four houses. Our house names were very unique in that unlike the traditional house names which consisted of Indian freedom fighters or names of flowers or something else, our house names consisted of names of ancient Persian princesses. I am not sure if I have mentioned it before, but my school is a Parsi school and was quite steeped into the Parsi culture. We used to be quite proud of our houses and were extremely competitive about it. This used to peak during sports day, more about it later.

As mentioned, our houses were named after ancient Persian princesses – green house is named Shernaaz, blue house is Purandokth, red house is Godarfried and yellow house is Faranakh

We were also very democratic in nature, with the entire secondary school voting democratically (just like in an election) to get our Head Girls, Junior Head Girls, House Captains and Vice Captains. If I remember correctly, grade five was not allowed to vote for the head girl, but when I was in grade five, we were allowed to vote for our house captains. For the head girls, the finalists had to give speeches in the school hall to the entire secondary school and also campaign with posters across the secondary school. On the voting day, we all queued up, according to class and cast our votes with one ballot for the head girl and one for the junior head girl. The votes use to be counted in the presence of the principal and winner in each category would be declared as winners. The two runner-ups would then be selected as the assistant head girls in their category.

For house captains, the process was slightly more casual. One day at the beginning of the year, each house would assemble in a pre-determined spot and teachers would start asking for students to either nominate their choices or ask students to self nominate themselves. Once they got a pre-determined number of students in each category – Captain and Vice Captain, they would hold elections.

The elections would be by show of hands and when the teacher who heads the house announces the name of each person, we would raise our hands and a head count taken. Then the winners announced and cheers and commiserations. It used to be a very fun atmosphere, especially since the periods after lunch would become free due to elections. When I was in grade five, I remember one of my classmates had a sister in grade nine and the class was just next to ours. So that class came to our class and literally brainwash us to vote for students in their class for Vice Captain and this trick worked! A few years later, teachers got wind of what the seniors were up to and stopped grade five students from voting. You only voted when you were in grade six and had some idea of the house system and the prominent girls there who may become house leaders.

Our rivalry and competitiveness really came to fore during our sports day. This would usually be held on a Sunday at a sports ground not too far from our school. While the primary and kindergarten students could sit with their parents in another section, secondary students had to sit according to their houses. So when the events started, everyone in the houses section would start cheering and booing. Points from each event would be added up and the house that scored the most points (from events on the sports day plus tournaments of indoor sports like chess, carrom, badminton etc. which would have already been calculated) would have the chance to lead the march past. In my years in school (including in primary school), my house did not lead the march past on only one occasion! And that was because that year something very unprecedented happened. Three houses had the exact same points and they had to toss to see which house would lead the march past and who would follow. Red house won the toss that year and my house, which was the green house was second! We were so disappointed that year. We would also practice for the march past for a couple of months before the sports day and this meant all those of us who were in the march past contingent (around 30 girls from grade five to grade ten) would practise after lunch and miss lessons which were also a bonus to us!

It was really fun writing this post and looking back in time when the most important thing was thinking about school and friends. I wish I could go back to those innocent times.

What are your favourite memories of school?

Travel: Interesting Mumbai Attractions and Experiences

Posted on January 16, 2019 by memoriesandsuch

I have a serious case of writers’ block and just can’t think of anything to write. So I was browsing the net to see if I can find some inspiration when I came across this list about my hometown Mumbai. This is a list of the top attractions in Mumbai if you want to know.

Some of these places are old favourites, and some of them are places where I have never been earlier. This list is a good starting point for me to use when I next go to Mumbai and take BB & GG around to play tourist.

I’ve spoken many times about my birthplace and hometown of Mumbai before. The financial capital of India, and one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the country (before the word was even a word), Mumbai is fast-paced, and some may even say a cold city. But it’s a city like no other. I may go anywhere in the world, live across continents, but Mumbai will always hold a very special place in my heart. Like someone once said, “Mumbai is a city, but Bombay is an emotion”. Old-timers still call the city Bombay, we still can’t get Mumbai as easily in our lips as Bombay, even though the name change was way back in 1995!

So anyway on to the attractions and experiences which make this city so special.

Kala Ghoda

Kala Ghoda which means black horse in Hindi is where the biggest cultural festival of the year takes place. The entire main street is taken over by stalls selling art and craft work, and prime performance venues are booked for plays, workshops and other events. The street is also lined with art installations, food stalls and street performers. If you are in Mumbai when it’s not festival time (which happens in February), you can still stroll along this area to see the neo-colonial and classic British architecture. I love walking here on Sundays when it is quite empty of the crowds which happen during a weekday because this is the heart of the city’s business centre. Walk along PM Road from CST station to Kala Ghoda and soak in the atmosphere of colonial British Bombay.

Marine Drive

The Queen’s Necklace as it’s fondly called is a 3.5 kilometre stretch in south Mumbai which turns into a major hangout spot during the evenings. It is called the Queens’s Necklace because, if viewed at night from an elevated point anywhere along the drive, the street lights resemble a string of pearls in a necklace. There’s a great view of the Mumbai skyline from Marine Drive and if you happen to be in Mumbai during the monsoon season, make sure you head there during the rains. The crashing waves make it so much fun!

Elephanta Caves

A small island two km off the shore of Mumbai in the Arabian Sea, Elephanta Caves, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site is an hour-long ferry ride away from Gateway of India. The complex consists of five Shaivite caves and a few Buddhist stupa mounds that may be dating to the 2nd century BCE, as well as a small group of two Buddhist caves with water tanks. It is divided into wings and the ‘Trimurti’ or the three-headed sculpture is one of the most important sculptures there. This cave structure has some of the world’s best rock-cut sculptures and most of the carvings here depict stories from Hindu mythology. Watch out for the monkeys though, they can be something of a nuisance on the island. The caves are closed on Mondays and possibly during the monsoon season.

Chor Bazaar

Tucked away in the depths of South Mumbai, Chor Bazaar or Thieves Market is famous as the underbelly of the city. More of a flea market today, it is a good place to search for random goods like automobile parts, furniture, old Bollywood paraphernalia, gramophone records and a bunch of other vintage stuff. What you find depends on your ability to unearth some classics from the eclectic souveniers abounding there. Haggling comes quite naturally to these shop owners so you can get away with pretty decent bargains. This market stretches out on Mutton Street, and the shops are open from 11 am to 7:30 pm.

Bandra Worli Sealink

The Bandra-Worli sea-link is truly a modern-day architectural marvel, that helps the choked traffic of Bombay by diverting a large part of it on a high-speed, six-lane expressway over the sea. It’s clean, it’s fast, no stopping, no two-wheelers, no people on foot, no photography. Driving down the sea-link can only be described as exhilarating. In this city of overcrowded houses, with stuck traffic and loud honking all around, a drive down this road can be the highlight of your day. Drive down this road, or get into a metered taxi and enjoy 6–7 minutes of pure, clean air as you drive above the deep Arabian Sea. It’s even better when you have the a view of the orange sky as the sun rises or sets, or the lit-up skyline of Mumbai, the city that never sleeps.

Flamingos at Sewri

Sewri, a station on the Central Railway Harbor Line, and one of the original seven islands of Bombay has a vast expanse of mangrove mudflats that are a protected ecology. Every October onwards, until February, thousands of pink flamingoes descend upon the seas of Mumbai in Sewri, along with other rare birds like the Egret. Head to Sewri on a weekend, and watch a rare phenomena take place in front of you in one of the most unlikely of places- Mumbai, the city of cars and buildings and taller buildings.

Khotachiwadi

A small heritage village tucked away in Girgaon, Khotachiwadi has the prettiest old style Portuguese houses in South Mumbai. They are mostly constructed out of wood, have small verandahs, and even tiny backyards. Unfortunately, a lot of these houses have been torn down in the past to make way for new constructions and now only a handful of them are still standing, so if you are in Mumbai, make sure you see these houses before they are all gone.

Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum

The oldest museum in Mumbai, the Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum houses artefacts and finds related to the cultural history of the city. Among the most interesting displays are old maps of Bombay harbour, dioramas of different parts of the city, and an old but complete warrior’s suit of chainmail.

Growing up in Mumbai

Posted on April 1, 2016 by memoriesandsuch

Matunga – for any Tambrahm in Mumbai, especially those of a certain age, the very word evokes the feel of home. Sometimes called ‘Mini Madras’, Matunga in what would be some where in the centre of what is the original city (as opposed to the suburbs) was probably the first place the initial immigrants, young, eager, bright and wide-eyed, came to from Dadar station when their trains from the south arrived in Mumbai all ready to conquer the world, with an introduction to perhaps, if they are lucky, to a relative (distant or otherwise), or maybe someone from the same village they belonged to, or even a relative’s relative!

While I am not sure if this is 100% accurate, from what I’ve heard from my parents and grandparents, most young Tamil Brahmin boys and men started arriving in Mumbai (or Bombay as it was called then) somewhere in the early forties, some years before India would finally throw off the yoke of British dominance and become independent.

Both sets of my grandparents arrived in Bombay somewhere in the early to mid-forties, luckier than most as both my grandfathers had an older brother already settled in the city, in Matunga as it were! If I were to probably measure the distance my paternal and maternal grandparents live away from each other, when they first arrived in the city, it should probably be a maximum of 1 km.

Matunga is the heart of the Tamil Brahmin community in Bombay and as such the roads are filled with the sights and sounds of temple bells and the smells of filter coffee and delicious food!

Temples like Bhajana Samaj, Astika Samaj and Sankara Math, shops like Mysore Concerns, Giri Stores and the row of flower sellers in the road outside the post office along with the vegetable sellers who have carts close-by are all hallmarks of the Tamil Brahmin community in Matunga! Who can forget the Ram Navami and Navaratri celebrations in Bhajana Samaj, the Diwali sweets that always were sold in the hall in Sankara Matt, the banana leaf sold by the vegetable vendors during any major festival, the gaggle of priests, outside the temples, the sound of the temple bells and sugarcane stalks just before Pongal?

When their families grew, both sets of my grandparents moved from their family homes and out of Matunga. But they both didn’t’ pull the umbilical cord too much and move far away. Both of them moved another kilometer away from Matunga in opposite directions actually, and that was where my parents were brought up.

So growing up, we lived in another area which was a fifteen minute walk from Matunga, which was in the periphery of our lives, without actually living there. We used to go to Matunga for literally everything and my mum still goes there atleast two to three times a week for her weekly ‘fix’. This area in Bombay is the lifeline for the community and even today when other mini Matungas have sprung up across the city and suburbs – like Chembur, Chedda Nagar, Bangur Nagar, Mulund, Dombivili, Vashi, etc you can still people who have moved away from Matunga come here on weekends to catch-up with family and friends, eat at childhood haunts and buy essentials which you don’t get anywhere else in the city.

Growing up, there was always this disconnect – we were Tamilians, but without the accent which is usually caricatured in movies and television and always had questions on why we needed to wear a bindi on our forehead or flowers in our hair. In my and my sister’s case, it was compounded by the fact we didn’t go to the school that most of our Brahmin friends and relatives went to (which was a school run by a Tamil trust where the language was taught as a second language)!

Growing up also we were quite insular. I would say this with the benefit of hindsight. Every Tamilan I knew at that point in time was a Brahmin – either from one of the districts of Tamil Nadu or from Palakkad (from Kerala who are called Kerala Iyers or Palakkad Brahmins). Where we stayed, while not in Matunga, was in fact another Tamil conclave, with almost all the 30-40 buildings in the area having a sizeable Tambrahm population each. My building had 19 flats and with the exception of 2-3, every flat was a Tambrahm flat! This was pretty much the case (the percentages being slightly more or less, with some exceptions) for the other buildings in the street I lived in. Even in school, my friends who were Tamil were Brahmins. In fact, coming to Singapore with its vast Tamil population was actually a culture shock to me as I had never seen so many people from so many Tamil communities and the temples were the biggest shock – I had not heard of all the different Gods that were worshipped there (all the temples I visited prior to this were my community temples or the other temples in Mumbai)

Since most of the community emigrated to Bombay around 60-80 years back, the dialect of Tamil, we speak is completely different from what is spoken by the community in places like Chennai and Singapore. Bombay Tambrahms have retained the words and cadence of their speech from all those years while communities in Singapore and Chennai have adopted more of the local language. So the Tamil we speak may actually seem strange to those who don’t speak like this! S used to tell me that they used to be made fun of in school when they spoke Brahmin Tamil, which is why his Tamil sounds more like how it is in movies while mine is the one they make fun of in movies!

Writing this post has made me so nostalgic. I think the next time I go to Mumbai, I will try and capture all the sights and sounds of the city so that every time I miss Mumbai, I have these to see and hear! Also this post has made me realise I need to pen down more about my life, so that GG and BB know what that was like….

Memories and Such

Memories of a very ordinary life

Category Archives: Mumbai