A Walking Tour (sometimes by car!) of Mumbai's Upmarket Neighbourhoods
Our hotel was a short walk north from the Gateway of India, on the edge of the Colaba district – the final protuberance of the Mumbai peninsula. After breakfast a pleasant young man met us in reception to conduct a walking tour, with added car (Mumbai is big).
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| Mumbai's main posh area extends from the Gateway of India, through Fort and Marine Drive to Malabar Hill |
We started a little further north in the Fort district on the main Mahatma Gandhi Road.
Kala Ghoda, Mahatma Gandhi Road
Elphinstone College
Mahatma Gandhi Road is lined with self-important buildings. Elphinstone College occupies a late Victorian pile of such solidity the builders clearly believed
the Empire would endure forever. The college, now part of Dr Homi Bhabha State
University, opened in 1835 and moved into this purpose-built edifice in the
1880s.
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| Elphinstone College, Mumbai |
It is named for Mountstuart Elphinstone (‘Mountstuart’ with that surname! What were his parent thinking?) who arrived in Calcutta from
Scotland aged 16 in 1796 and joined the British East India Company’s civil
service. Having an uncle who was a director of the company did not hurt his
progress through the ranks, but he was genuinely able and became Governor of Bombay in 1819 (I shall use 'Bombay' for references to the city pre-1995, otherwise 'Mumbai'). He
did much to promote public education at a time when the prevailing British
attitude was against educating the 'natives.’ He left India in 1827 having set
in motion the events that would lead to the college that bears his name.
David Sassoon Library and Reading Room
The David Sassoon Library and Reading Room next door was completed in 1871. It was named for, and partly funded by David Sassoon who
died a few years before it was completed.
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| The David Sassoon Library and Reading Room, Mumbai |
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| David Sassoon, 1792-1864 |
Sassoon was a remarkable man. Born in Baghdad in 1792 he was, like his father, a businessman and a leader of the Jewish community. A
period of anti-Semitic persecution persuaded him to move first to Persia and
then to Bombay, arriving sometime before 1832. Extremely successful in business,
with interests stretching from China to the UK, he became one the world’s wealthiest
men. He spent his vast riches on a variety of worthy causes, contributing to
the building of schools, hospitals, museums and synagogues. He became a British
citizen in 1853, although he never learned English and dressed all his life in
the traditional style of an Iraqi Jew. He had 8 sons from two marriages (and 4
daughters though there is little information about them.) and encouraged them
to speak English and adopt western dress and manners.
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| The nearby Knesset Eliyahoo synagogue, Mumbai Established 1884 by David Sassoon's grandson Jacob, very much in the Sassoon tradition |
His son Abdullah settled permanently in England in 1873 as director of the London office of David Sassoon and Sons. Changing his
name to Albert he continued with his father’s philanthropic activity and was
created Baronet Sassoon in 1890.
Sassoon David Sassoon, the eldest son of David Sassoon’s second marriage also settled in England. A businessman and scholar, his daughter,
Rachel was the first woman to edit a national newspaper, editing The
Observer and then the Sunday Times in the 1890s. He was also the
grandfather of Siegfried Sassoon one of the finest poets of the First World War and a man I have previously quoted in this blog
Watson's Hotel
Next-door-but-one is the former Watson’s Hotel, now the Esplanade Mansion. Although in a rather sad condition, it is world’s oldest multi-level cast-iron frame building.
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| Watson's Hotel, Mumbai |
John Watson was a successful haberdasher
who decided he wanted a hotel. Entirely pre-fabricated in England, assembly of the hotel started
in 1867 and it opened in 1871, the year John Watson died. His son, John
Jnr, made it Bombay’s premier hotel, with an exclusively European clientele, even
at one time importing English waitresses. John Jnr returned to England in 1896, and in
1903 the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel opened (more later) and Watson’s would never be
Bombay’s premier hotel again. There is a story, almost certainly apocryphal, that Jamsetji
Tata built the Taj Hotel as vengeance for being denied access to Watson’s.
Watson’s Hotel ceased trading in 1920 and for the building it has been downhill
ever since.
Kala Ghoda Statue
This southern end of Mahatma Gandhi Road is known as Kala Ghoda (Black Horse).
The original Black Horse, the work of George Wade, was being ridden by the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII). Erected in 1870 on the occasion
of his visit and financed by Albert Sassoon, it lasted until 1965 when the city
rounded up the effigies of its former colonial rulers. The statue is now in the zoo.
For many years Kala Ghoda was without a Black Horse.
The ‘Spirit of Kala Ghoda’ – almost a replica of the original horse, sans rider
- has only been here since 2017. Sculpted by Shreehari Bhosle it was financed
by the Kala Ghoda Association.
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| Kala Ghoda |
Rajabai Clock Tower
The tower, which stands a little back from Mahatma Gandhi Road, looks and sounds slightly familiar. Completed in 1878, the design by Sir George Gilbert Scott owes just a little to August Pugin’s Elizabeth tower
(as Big Ben’s tower has been called since 2012).
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| Rajabai Clocktower, Mumbai |
It was part financed by Premchand Roychand, founder the Bombay Stock Exchange, and named after his mother. A probably apocryphal
story tells that his mother, a strict Jain who had to take her evening meal
before dark, had gone blind and needed a striking clock within earshot. There
must have been a cheaper way to solve that problem.
Marine Drive
Our guide located the driver and bundled us into the car for the very short journey to Marine Drive (see map above).
‘Do you want get out and walk?’ he asked. ‘Yes’, we said, which surprised him. The question is mandatory according to the ‘Guide’s
Bumper Book of Questions to ask Tourists,’ but apparently nobody ever says
‘yes’. The driver was so confused he crawled along the curb just behind us in
case he was needed. The guide soon realised this was silly and sent him away to
park.
What, I wonder, was so odd about our decision? Promenades are built the world over for people to walk beside the sea, human
beings seem to like it – and to sit beside the sea, too.
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| Sitting by the sea on Marine Drive, Mumbai |
It is a place where young Indians can do things that would have caused a scandal in their grandparents’ time – and still would in
many parts on India. I will omit that photo. Though harmless by European standards
I would not want to cause any trouble.
Across the road are up-market seaside apartments, looking just as they do anywhere else. The large floodlight tower visible just
above the apartments to the left is in a corner of Wankhede Stadium. The 33,000-seater
cricket stadium is the home of Mumbai, the most successful Ranji Trophy Team,
Mumbai Indians IPL Team, and has frequently hosted the Indian National team.
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| Marine Drive, Mumbai |
Marine Drive, like Kala Ghoda hardly felt like India; the sun was strong enough, but where were the tuk-tuks and cycle rickshaws,
where the litter and incessant sound of car horns? Where are the hawkers and
their barrows? Here, in the most affluent corner of India’s most affluent city,
so many of the usual accompaniments of Indian life have been banished.
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| Walking along Marine Drive, Mumbai |
We reached Chowpatty Beach. In front and a little to our left was the green protuberance of Malabar Hill. Mountstuart Elphinstone
was the first to build a bungalow here, in 1865 it was the birthplace of Rudyard Kipling and is now home to the business tycoons and
Bollywood film stars who make up India’s super-rich.
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| Chowpatty Beach and Malabar Hill, Mumbai |
Gandhi Museum and Library
After our walk we were driven a little way inland from the end of Marine drive to the Gandhi Museum and Library. This was our third
Gandhi Museum of the trip and, great man as he may be, it was at least one more
than was necessary.
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| Gandhi Museum and Library, Mumbai |
The first had been the Subarmarti Ashram in Ahmedabad, Gandhi’s home for many years, making all other Gandhi
Museums a disappointment, not that the Mumbai guide knew where we had been –
and we were too polite to tell him.
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| Gandhi Museum and Library, Mumbai |
Another problem here was that a cruise ship was in and busloads were being brought, whisked in, round and out before the next busload
arrived. In places we had to fight to see the exhibits - though I took my photos in quieter moments. I am not old enough to
go on a cruise (though 70 is not far away) but when I am, I still won’t go.
The Hanging Gardens
It is not just Babylon that has hanging gardens, Mumbai has them too. Nobody knows in what way the Babylonian Gardens hung, but
those in Mumbai rather disappointingly sit on rather than dangle over the city’s main reservoir.
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| Hanging Gardens, Mumbai |
Officially called the Pherozeshah Mehta Gardens they were laid out in 1881 by Ulhas Ghapokar. The story that they cover
the reservoir to avoid possible contamination from the Towers of Silence 500m
to the north may not be true.
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| Hanging Gardens, Mumbai |
It is a pretty place with flowers, walkways and views of the Arabian Sea…
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| Colaba Point and the open sea from the Hanging Gardens, Mumbai |
….as well as a large children’s section.
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| Who is the king of the swingers? |
Tiffin Carriers
We headed north up the west coast of the peninsula towards the Dhobi Ghat, passing the Dabbawalla statue on the way. Dabbas or Tiffin
Boxes – small stainless steel or aluminium boxes with a tight-fitting lid in
which workers carry a packed lunch – are common across India, but Mumbai has taken
them and created a unique institution. Almost 200,000 dabbas are delivered
daily from their homes to the office workers of Mumbai. Dabbas are collected around
the suburbs, loaded onto trains, and distributed throughout central Mumbai by bicycle.
In the afternoon they are returned whence they came.
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| The Dabbawalla Statue, Mumbai |
Mumbai’s 5,000 uniformed dabbawalas – almost all from the same village near Pune - are self-employed members of the Mumbai Tiffin
Box Suppliers' Association, which guarantees a minimum wage and distributes
profits. The system is remarkably efficient, (almost) infallibly delivering the
right box to the right place at the right time six days a week 51 weeks of the
year – for a week in March everything closes while the dabbawallas attend their
village festival.
The system started with 100 dabbawallas in 1890 and has been growing ever since; we saw several on our travels. It answers a particular
need of a particular city, but also relies on a society where men go to work
and women stay home and cook their meals.
Dhobi Ghat
We have visited laundries in India before, in Lucknow in the north and Kochi in the south, but this is the first we have seen with its own viewing gallery. We waited while a bus load of cruise ship passengers was shepherded out of the way.
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| Dhobi ghat viewing platform, Mumbai |
7,000 dhobiwallas flog, scrub, bleach, dye and dry 100,000 items a day, mostly by hand. In 2011 the Guinness Book of Records certified their
record for the ‘most people hand-washing clothes at a single location’. The
cleanliness of the finished product is unchallenged and in the feat of organisation
involved in returning (almost) every item to its owner the dhobiwallas match the dabbawallas. It is, though, a labour-intensive way of washing clothes, and works only because that labour is cheap.
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| Dhobi Ghat |
Mumbai Municipal Headquarters
Moving back south towards our hotel we stopped outside the headquarters of the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai - though it resembles
a Cathedral more than a seat of government. The corporation was established in 1888 and is
responsible for the civic infrastructure and administration of the almost 500
km² of Greater Mumbai.
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| Mumbai Municipal Headquarters |
The statue outside is of Sir Pherozeshah Merwanjee Mehta, the man for whom the Hanging Gardens are named. The son of a Parsi businessman, he graduated from Elphinstone College in 1864 then gained an MA in Law at Bombay University. Further study in London led to him being called to the bar after which he returned to practice in Bombay. In 1872 He drafted the Bombay Municipal Act and is thus considered the 'father of Bombay Municipality'. He went into politics and in 1885 was a founder member of the Indian National Congress which would eventually lead the country to independence.
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| Sir Pherozshah Merwanjee Mehta, the father of the Mumbai Municipality |
The Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Railway Terminal
Facing the municipal building is the even larger and grander (if part scaffolded) Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Railway Terminal. Designed
by Frederick William Stevens in Gothic Revival style, it was completed in 1887,
the 50th anniversary of Queen Victoria’s ascension to the throne and so became the Victoria Terminal. The station was renamed in 1996 after Shivaji, the 17th century founder of the Maratha Empire. It is perfectly reasonable for
India to remove the names of British monarchs from major transport hubs, but
why Shivaji when Mumbai already had a Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International
Airport? Why not pick someone else?
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| Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminal, Mumbai |
Inside is one of the world’s busiest railway stations (and a couple of layabouts posing for photos).
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| Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminal, Mumbai |
As in many Victorian railway stations (and the Moscow metro) the design details are way over the top for a railway station.
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| Inside the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus |
The station was on of 10 sites attacked in November 2008 by the Pakistan based Lashkar-e-Taiba extremist group. Two terrorists ran into the station firing AK 47 rifles indiscriminately. 58 people were killed and 104 injured
Taj Mahal Palace
Near our hotel is the Taj Mahal Palace. Built in 1903 it soon replaced Watson’s as Bombay’s leading hotel. It may now be challenged by two
dozen other 5-star hotels, but remains the most expensive in town.
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| Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, Mumbai |
One of the challengers is the adjacent Taj Mahal Tower. It has the same owners and sets the same standards, but the functional modern tower lacks the grandeur of the older building.
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| Taj Mahal Tower Hotel, Mumbai |
Unlike Watson’s, the Taj Mahal Palace has always been under Indian ownership and open to all – well, all who afford £300+ a night. We
walked through with our guide; the new ground floor is cool and elegant and mainly
given over to retail premises bearing the names you see in 5-star hotels the
world over. Don’t the rich deserve a bit of variety?
Like the railway station, the hotel was targeted in the 2008 attack. Bombs exploded on the ground floor and six armed men attempted
to take hostages. 32 innocent people, guests and staff, died. Near reception on
the restored ground floor is a wall of running water. Beside it the names of those
who died are carved in alphabetical order, regardless of nationality or status.
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| Memorial to those killed in the 2008 attack, Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, Mumbai |
The Gateway of India
I mentioned the Gateway of India in this post’s opening paragraph and now, almost at the end, we finally get there. It is opposite the
Taj Mahal Tower and a short walk from out more modest accommodation.
In 1911 when
George V became the first British monarch to visit India the local authorities
decided to build a symbolic Gateway on the Bombay waterfront, through which the King-Emperor
and Queen-Empress could enter the sub-continent.
British government planning was as impressive then as it is today, and in December 1911 the King and Queen passed through a
world-beating cardboard replica of a gate that would eventually be completed in
1924.
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| The Gateway of India, Partly obscured from the landward side, I could not get far enough away on the seaward side |
The gateway was subsequently used as a symbolic entrance to British India by important colonial personnel and the last British
troops left through it at independence in 1948. Once unpopular as a
representation of "conquest and colonisation" attitudes have soften; it
is now a symbol of the city and an attraction to tourists and the army of
street vendors that prey upon them.
Dinner in Mumbai
Our half day tour had been good value, reaching well into the afternoon. Once the guide had departed, we did some last-minute
shopping and later walked north into Kala Ghoda in search of a recommended
restaurant. It was clean and the décor was well above average but our meal, aloo
muttah and tandori chicken, was fine but hardly outstanding.
And Home
Next morning, we went to the airport and thence home. Our plane to Dubai was late arriving and flight to Birmingham was further delayed in Dubai, including an
hour’s sit in the plane before it pushed back. The reason? Heavy rain, Dubai
has 94 mm a year (less than 4 inches) and most of this year's fell on us.
I will just repeat my thanks to Pioneer Travel of Kochi whose arrangements were as faultless for our two days in Mumbai as they were
for our two weeks in Gujarat.
Part 3: Meeting the Locals
Part 4: Siddhpur, Patan and Modhera
Part 5: Salt and Wild Asses in the Little Rann of Kutch
Part 6: Blackbuck National Park, Velavadar
Part 7: Bhavnagar
Part 8: Palitana and the Temples on Shatrunjaya Hill
Part 9: A Lion Hunt and a Visit to Junagadh
Part 10: Gondal
Part 11: Gondal to Bhuj
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