A Tourist in an Indian metro - Part II
Yeh Hai Mumbai Meri Jaan.

Immortal lines those.... Mumbai Meri Jaan. Ok, before I get maudlin with nostalgia, let's start our tour. From my point of view, the interesting point of Mumbai is what is referred to as `Town'. This is equivalent to downtown in the Western context and in Mumbai, means South Bombay and geographically refers to the area lying between the Docks to Dadar. Dadar onwards, including Matunga & the western,central and harbour areas, constitute the suburbs. Incidentally, I don't think the whole of Town is interesting, but well, most of it is.

I am going to start at the Gateway of India. A monument of our colonial past, built by the serving British as a point of welcome to their reigning monarchs, the Gateway of India is from the very Indian point of view no architectural wonder. But the monument itself is quite beautiful - tall and set right on the waters of the blue Arabian stretching behind. There is a small green park front(optimistically termed garden) and there are several small boats moored on the side, which take you to the Elephanta caves. The area within the arch is quite cool even during the hottest points of the day, when there is no sea breeze. There is always a crowd of people hanging around these places and it looks quite happy at all times.

Facing this is the Taj Mahal Hotel which also looks like a colonial structure and is really beautiful to behold. The Gateway and the Taj are lit at nights and it really looks very,very beautiful then too. An important point I would like to make is that the Gateway presents the best Photo location. Somehow all photographs in this place look beautiful and romantic.

The road here is called the Colaba Causeway and there are some of the jhatkas (horse-drawn carriages)which take you around for a spin. All this adds to the feudal, colonial air which is a rather lovely experience.

Behind the Taj is Colaba and this is are area with a myriad of lanes which have lovely shops, bars, restaurants and old colonial buildings plus the quaint Colaba market, where your street bargaining starts. This is a great place to walk around just like that. You will land at a junction of the Regal Theatre, an old colonial theatre building which has now been converted into a cinema hall. It was here that I first heard of the term `Dress Circle'. This refers to a special set of seats which are between Balcony and the normal classes and they are normally the centre seats offering the best view of the screen (and in earlier days the stage, from where this term derives its name).

Leading from there, is the road which will take you to further areas of Colaba on the left, Kala Ghoda and then Nariman Point (with Mantralaya in between) straight on and Fort on the right.

Kala Ghoda has the famous Jehangir Art Gallery which has a different painting display everytime you go and also has the delightful Samovar Cafe inside where you can get the most amazing parathas and chai. Very simple but excellent food in a nice intellectual atmosphere. Opposite Jehangir is Rhythm House - which is one of Mumbai's oldest music stores.

I would now take the right, past the Mumbai University buildings getting to Flora Fountain. This is nothing but a fountain as the name suggests - a European sort of fountain, behind which lies the delightful Fort area with its myriad little lanes. Fort is a place to just walk around - you will find offices, big and small including the Reserve Bank and Bombay House (Tata HQ), the lovely Horniman Circle (with a garden), the huge Asiatic library, the stock exchange building and colonial and modern structures co-existing. Fort consists of alleyways which are densely populated as is the state with Mumbai everywhere and walking here is the jostling crowds is an experience by itself. My earlier office was in Brady House which was a heritage building by itself and I used to walk around Fort everyday and I love the area. Right next to the Stock exchange is a khao gulley , eating lane if translated literally where you find street chinese food, which is a beet red in colour!!

In these lanes will you discover The Bombay Store, a lifestyle store, (it was a great favourite with me and has caused several dents in my wallet) and The Strand - a quaint bookstore which has different books which are piled on the floor at many places. You get lovely hardbound books at a steep discount and I just loved going to this store to browse through.

This side ends at the Victoria Terminus (which is Grand Central equivalent in Mumbai) a beautiful architectural sight, especially in the evening with the lights on. This of course, is only on the outside. The insides are crowded, dirty and smelly. But it still is a wonderful sight. Opposite this is the Times of India building which is also a beautiful colonial building and the famous JJ School of Arts, which in my point of view is housed in a rather drab and droopy campus. From Victoria Terminus, I would just cross the road and explore some more of the Fort Area before landing up on the M.G Road which is a lovely road to walk on. On the right is the Bombay Gymkhana, on the left is VSNL HQ, on the opposite side is Fashion Street which is a road shopping paradise for the college students. At the end of the road on the right is the historic Metro theatre. And behind Fashion street across the Circus Grounds is the Churchgate station.

I will end my first day here. And through all these (which are really within a 2-3 km radius) I would have thrown in `vada pav' at CTO (opp.Flora Fountain), Brun Muska chai(crisp bun and tea) at Irani Cafe in Fort and bhel puri at Vittal (opp Sterling cinema) as a part of my day experience. Ideally I would trace my route back to Colaba through the lovely M G Road and the high court building this time and get back to Colaba. hangout can be bars like Cafe Mondegar(which serves warm beer and great music),Leos or Athena for the more upmarket, which will complete the first day Mumbai experience. Colaba has many great restaurants too.Near VT is also the Crawford Market and Chor Bazaar(literally translated as the Thieves Market), which offer phoren (Indian for foreign) goods to Indian fruits at the cheapest bargains

Ok, so the next post will be day two.