Mumbai Visit July '23

Before I start, here is a disclaimer: I am a full filmy person and I am attracted more to drama and stories. This was supposed to be a office work visit, but with the help of my friend turned it into a Mumbai heritage exploration trip.

I won't bore your with the details of which places to visit, what time etc. There are enough blogs on the internet to do that. I am here for the stories I collected and I'm writing it down to I can relive these whenever I want.

My office is located in Southern Mumbai, a hotspot for tourists usually. From Gateway of India, to the Taj, to heritage buildings, you get to see everything there. My office - the Fort house itself is a heritage building by the Tatas and has been owned by them for more than 93 years. So my first taste of heritage building was as soon as I'd entered office itself.

I have previously visited Mumbai, with my parents and the occasional business trip but I don't remember most parts of it, it is also before the 26/11 attack (I'll write about the significance of this later). I almost instantly fell in love with the vibe, fast pace of the city. Visiting during the monsoon also helped.

Anyway coming back to the main adventure I am writing this blog about. After finishing office, Mani (my friend) and I started walking towards Marine Drive after dinner which was a beautiful place called Folk. It is a collection of the most famous food combinations from across India. So with a lovely breeze and a slight drizzle we walked towards Marine Drive. At night it is resplendent and looks like a necklace.

I could see the Oberoi Trident and various other landmarks' beautifully lined silhouettes at night. We saw a double decker tourist bus cross us and we ran to catch it, what's more touristy than being on a double decker bus. The bus took us across the city and saw other landmark and heritage buildings, most of which were classified under Gothic or Art Deco type of architecture in the areas we moved around it. We saw the BMC building, the CST station which have the Victorian Gothic and Indian architectural designs. When you look closely you see the initials GIPR engraved in CST Terminus. It stands for Great Indian Peninsula Railways which was the mode of transport before Indian railways and this was built as a station to replace Bori Bunder. We saw dragons, fishes (or similar looking creatures) adorning these buildings.

Mani rightly pointed out that we could spend hours observing the architecture. I was really impressed with the amount of effort taken by government to protect the heritage of Mumbai or Bombay, a name that connects deeper with us. We got down somewhere around Mantralaya and started walking towards the Gateway and Taj. In between, we saw the magnificent Mumbai Police headquarters that is again a heritage building built by the same person who built the CST/CSMT building - erstwhile Victoria Terminus. Again a masterpiece in architecture! In a small-ish detour we saw the Leopold Cafe, a 150 year old Irani cafe which was also one of the first sites of attack in 26/11.

We walked to towards the gateway and the Taj. The gateway looks welcoming and strong, standing tall in front of the choppy Arabian sea. This is supposed to have Arabian/Muslim styles of architecture incorporated around it and was built a little later than the buildings I have previously spoken about. It's about a 100 years old It was built to welcome a British monarch (possible Queen Elizabeth's father?) and was a viewpoint with a waterfall before that. This was also the place from where the last Britishers left following Independence for India.

The last one of the iconic buildings that I saw was the Taj. It was different from when I had seen it 10-15 years back (obviously) but what stood was a very tall building that is a new addition to the original iconic Taj. As we peaked inside different floors, we saw such elegance inside. Chandeliers to pillars to people enjoying their conversation. It looked pristine and no one in their right mind can imagine this had been a site of terror once!

Taj entrance

The glorious Taj

We took another bus, this time it was an open double decker and we went for a full round and back to Taj. Saw the Church gate station, buildings old and new, but with so much stories to tell! Came back to marine drive, this time going all the way to Girgaum Chowpatty. On the way we saw the bust of the policeman who had lost his life while capturing the terrorist from 26/11. We saw several buildings from different cultures because Mumbai has always been multicultural. From Islamic, To Gothic, to Parsis, Zoroastrians, Jews and more!

The trip ended when we came back to Taj and explored more on foot. I forgot but somewhere on foot while walking, we also walked around Kala Ghoda, Army Navy building, Regal cinema, Elphinstone college (Where HJ Bhabha, Bal Gangadhar Tilak and other noteworthy people have studied) and more of these buildings. Came across lot of popular eateries, bakeries and visited well know cafes through the course of the stay.

The view of BMC from our tourist bus

This trip has beautiful memories as I got to experience the city so closely. The 2 misses have been Vada paw and travelling in a local but that will perhaps force me to go back soon and experience more of Mumbai!

End note: Remember I had written a little about the 26/11 attacks and here's why I have spoken about it in some places in this story. Mumbai has seen several huge attacks, bomb blasts/killings starting from 1993 to 2008 and more. Mumbai is a city known to fight back, jump back right up and never stop.

While I stood and walked right on the lanes and places where those perpetrators walked and killed people, I couldn't help but think about the fear, loss and despair that the people would have faced, at that time. While we take pride in the fact that we can get back up and nothing can break our spirit, I felt deeply for every single person or family that has been affected, in Mumbai or across the world. In our daily fast moving lives we often forget the suffering and the loss. But perhaps, what we can do is sometimes slow down, cherish what we have and live in this moment because life is indeed unpredictable.

PS. I have written this solely on the memory of what my friend told me, and from what I previously knew. Ignore factual inconsistencies. The only thing I referred to, is a roadway map of Mumbai to fully understand where I exactly visited.