The melting Pot. Review on Mumbai

Bombay was central, had been so from the moment of its creation: the Illegitimate child of a Portuguese-English wedding, and yet the most Indian of Indian cities. In Bombay all Indias met and merged. In Bombay, too, all-India met what-was-not-India, what came across the black water to flow into our veins. Everything north of Bombay was North India, everything south of it was the South. To the east lay India’s East and to the west, the world’s West. Bombay was central; all rivers flowed into its human sea. It was an ocean of stories; we were all its narrators, and everybody talked at once. (Rushdie, 350)

Bombay was founded in 1554 when Garcia da Orta, a Portuguese botanist, rented an H-shaped island from the King of Portugal and built himself a giant mansion. A century later the land called “Boa Bahia... Bom Bahia... Bombay” passed to the British crown when Portuguese princess Catherine the Great married Charles II in 1661. The Bombay had arrived and with it arrived the ordinary bombiya, each with a story of our own, each with a relation ship so unique that only some one who has lived here can understand. But here what I am narrating is not a story but a guide to the Bomb city of bombay.

Must See's (for everyone): Victoria Terminus ( Some prefer it CST) , Nariman point, Gateway of India, Elephanta Caves, Chowpatty Beach.

Religious people: Maha Laxmi, Haji Ali, Afghan church, Walkeshwar.

Hip Hops: various watering holes in city esp. slip-disc, border and Fire & Ice.

Nature lovers: Botanical Garden, malabar hills, Nehru Planetorium, Pheroze Shah mehta Garden.

Food Lovers: Road side fruit salad Plate, Juhu beach Pav Bhaji, Dabelis and Vada pavs. And if u are sit down kinds: Zodiac Grill at Taj, Jazz by the Bay, Gay lord, Zenith, Once upon a time, Coper Chimney, Bombay Brassiere and jewel of India are god ones.

Best College Festivals: Mood Indigo (Dec End), Malhar, Arambh, Bruohaha.

Outings: Mud Island, Essel world, Teeku Chini Wadi, Lonavala, Matheran.

for Artsy Kinds: Prince of Wales museum, Hutatma chowk, Tarpore wala Acquarium, Race Course.

For ordinary people like me: Sitting on Juhu Beach, Loittering on Marine Drive, Oogling at Bandra Band stand, and haggling people to enter a Fast local in Dadar are best memories.

What makes the city Great:

It is a city in which you can speak Hindi, Marathi, or English and get around without a problem. If you do not speak any of those languages well, a rudimentary knowledge of one of them will suffice. You can be a Parsi (many of the industrialists who built the city in the early twentieth century were Parsis), a Jain, a Sikh, a Muslim, or a Hindu, and find Bombay as home. You can be a Bihari immigrant, a young woman seeking stardom in Bollywood, or someone with generations in the city, and still be at home. You can have a Hindu first name, a Jewish middle name, and a Portuguese last name, and Bombay will not blink an eye. ( Disclaimer: Quote based on some Ones opinion ;-))