Mumbai: from the Gutter to the Stars by Simon Crerar
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Magical Mumbai is India’s megacity, a seething, teeming metropolis of more than 14 million people. The subcontinent’s business and entertainment capital, it boasts both the biggest slum and most expensive real estate in Asia, as well as Bollywood, the world’s most productive movie industry.
The commercial capital of the British Raj, bustling Bombay is today a beacon for migrants from across India, who come here seeking fame and fortune, dreaming of escaping poverty to become Bollywood stars a la Shahrukh Khan, Aishwarya Rai et al. Aligned on a north south axis, like Manhattan on steroids, you could spend months in Mumbai and still only scratch her surface. Here’s our insider’s guide to the best of the city.
01 Tour the Dharavi Slum
You’ve seen Slumdog Millionaire right? Cracking movie, brilliant story, nothing like reality. Dharavi slum houses one million people in an area the size of Hyde Park, and yes the toilets are appalling (one for every 1,500 slum dwellers at latest count). But this is a self-reliant community absolutely buzzing with commercial activity. Go with Reality Tours and you’ll see plastic recycling factories, poppadom bakeries and hundreds of other thriving small scale businesses. They have mobile phone masts, electricity and running water too (for a few hours a day at least). An inspiring eye opener. (Dharavi tour, 800 rupees for five hours: www.realitytoursandtravel.com)
02 Buy Street Kids’ Food in Crawford Market
Not all Mumbai’s poor have a community like Dharavi to support them. As in every Indian city, huge numbers of people sleep rough on Bombay’s streets every night. This is the most upsetting aspect of India for most visitors, but as the veteran BBC correspondent Mark Tully replied when asked how he dealt with the poverty: “I don’t have to, the poor do.” It’s between yourself and your conscience whether you give rupees to every hand that reaches out. There are certainly organised begging rackets, so if you want to be sure you’re helping, why not visit Mumbai’s incredible Crawford food market, buy a basket of fruit, and give the kids what they really need: a Vitamin C boost. (Crawford Market, top of Dr D. N. Road, 10 minutes north of CST station)
03 Drink Chai in the Gutter
By now you’ll probably be in need of a pick-me-up. Masala chai is India’s national drink, a sweet, sugary, saccharine, wonderfully addictive combination of tea (usually Assam), milk and aromatic spices and herbs, typically cardamom, cinnamon, ginger, star anise, peppercorn and cloves. You’ll find chai steaming on every street corner, the bigger the crowd the better the brew. Pay no more than five rupees for one of the most delicious cuppas of your life. Unmissable. (Available everywhere)
04 Play Cricket on Maidan Oval
Even if you have no interest at all in cricket, you’ll probably know that the game is the British Raj’s greatest legacy. India are the world’s top side; the country’s embryonic IPL league – where teams around India play the abbreviated form of the game known as 20Twenty – is the world’s most lucrative. Wherever you go you’ll see people of all ages and castes playing cricket. In the slums, in the streets, everywhere. Oval Maidan is a 22-acre recreation ground bang in the centre of downtown south Mumbai. Go on a Sunday afternoon to watch one of the most incredible sporting spectacles you will ever see. Hundreds of ad-hoc games run concurrently immediately beside one another, with the fielding team stretching across a dozen nearby wickets. It’s easy to join in if you fancy. (Oval Maiden, beside the University of Mumbai, Fort district)
05 Stroll Chowpatty Beach at Sunset
From one Sunday institution to another. Chowpatty is Mumbai’s most famous stretch of sand, sitting at the northern end of the west-facing three-kilometre long sweep of six lane boulevard officially called Marine Drive – but known to most Mumbaikars as the Queen’s Necklace. Stroll the entire promenade from the Oberoi Hotel to Chowpatty. Once there, join the throngs of families sitting on the sand indulging in Bombay’s best street food snack. The wonderful Bhelpuri, a sweet and spicy taste sensation, comprises puffed rice, sev, tomatoes, onions and chillies. Cool your mouth down afterwards with a delicious Indian style kulfi ice cream from the fifty-year-old stall behind the beach. Avoid any temptation to cool off in the Arabian Sea: the water is toxic at best. (Chowpatty, Marine Drive, Girgaon)
06 Buy Tourist Tat at the Gateway of India
Built by the British in 1911 to commemorate the Bombay visit of King George V and Queen Mary, in the days before commercial jet aircraft this was the first sight most European visitors to India would have seen. Built from yellow basalt in a combination of Hindu and Muslim architectural styles, the stone arch is also noteworthy for being the spot where the last British troops left India following independence in 1946. Today it’s the epicentre of Mumbai’s Colaba tourist district, and an unavoidable photo opportunity. Prepare for all manner of pushy but friendly sellers offering postcards, souvenir photos (printed on the spot) and giant balloons. Immediately behind the Gateway is the mighty Taj hotel: see below. (Gateway of India, Mahakavi Bhushan Road, Apollo Bandar)
07 Sup Beers at Leopold Cafe & Bar
A short stroll from the Gateway on Colaba Causeway, Leopold’s is Mumbai’s tourist ground zero. It was one of the first spots hit in November 2008’s terrorist attacks, and thus a rather macabre place for a beer. If the bullet holes don’t leave you feeling too ghoulish, and you can concentrate on your Kingfisher in a bar where 10 people died, you’ll find an excitable mix of backpackers and boorish Bombayites getting merry – India’s youth can’t hold their beer – while sending a defiant f**k you to the fundamentalists who brought murder and mayhem to Mumbai in such unforgettable fashion. Opened in 1871, Leo’s is open 07:00 to midnight. Stay away from the food. (Leopold’s, Colaba Causeway, Fort)
08 Enjoy a Night Out in Bandra and Juhu
Bombay's main attractions are concentrated in a relatively compact area south of the CST train station. Modern Mumbai is actually an amalgamated collection of seven islands, gaps filled in by reclaimed land, stretching more than 40 kilometres from the Gateway up to mainland India. As the city has expanded, its richer denizens have shifted ever further north to escape the poverty and pollution. Today, B-Town stars and Mumbai expats congregate in the Westernised beachside suburbs of Bandra and Juhu. Have a swanky dinner in hot restaurant Olive in Pali Hill and you may sit next to local boy Aamir Khan. Move on to Vie in Juhu later, and you can sup astronomically priced cocktails with flashing light ice cubes (yes really), while keeping your eyes peeled for Bollywood’s Posh and Becks, Aishwarya Rai and her husband Abishek Bachahan. (Olive Bar and Kitchen, Khar West, Bandra; Vie Deck & Lounge, Tara Road, Santa Cruz (W), Juhu)
09 Escape to Nashik for the Weekend
If Mumbai gets too much and you are feeling flush and adventurous, hire a car and driver or book a first class train and head inland 200km to Nashik, epicentre of India’s booming wine industry. While the region is not yet as well set-up for visitors as California’s Napa Valley or New Zealand’s Marlborough, wineries such as Sula are making superb use of India’s bountiful sun and monsoonal rains to produce very quaffable, fruit-packed wines. Sula’s owner is an IT multimillionaire returned from Silicon Valley. The winery has an excellent tour, a stunning terrace bar overlooking the vines, and a gorgeous bungalow for hire. If it’s booked, the Taj Hotel in Nasik has five star rooms for £60. (Sula Wineries, Off Gangapur-Savargaon Road, Nashik)
10 Sip Cocktails at the Taj Mahal Hotel
The indelible image of the horrific terrorist attacks on Mumbai was the dome of the Taj Hotel, defiantly wreathed in smoke, echoing the famous photo of London's St Paul's Cathedral during the Blitz. For sixty terrible hours the surviving terrorists holed up with their hostages in the Taj and made a final stand. Resiliently, the hotel reopened within a month, making a mockery of the terrorists’ dream of bringing Bombay to a standstill. Mumbaikars were mostly unruffled by the attacks. This is a city where more than 2000 people die falling off trains each year, where rich and poor live in mostly- happy equilibrium: it takes more than a few warped individuals to blow this most vibrant and bustling city off course. If you want to drink to that, the Taj’s Sea Lounge is undoubtedly the place. (Taj Mahal Hotel, Apollo Bunder)
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