Mumbai — India’s finest British legacy

Mumbai, known not very long ago as Bombay, home to the Indian version of Hollywood is once again making headlines but for all the wrong reasons.
Apart from the negativity surrounding those events, Mumbai is undoubtedly one of the greatest cities of the world. The credit also goes to the long British rule – ending in 1947 — that added to the grandeur of this beautiful city.
Recently a sad incident shook not only India but also the entire world. A budding Mumbai-based photojournalist was gang raped when she was visiting a cotton mill along with a male colleague.
Media almost all across the globe is abuzz with developments on this case. The case has attracted more attention due to the fact that hardly a year ago, a young woman was brutally raped and subjected to severe torture that resulted in her death.
A kind of gloom has set in on the entire nation and the civil society seems to be up in arms to mobilize the masses and the government functionaries to prevent crimes against women.
Although it is difficult to forget these incidents, we can only hope that sanctity of the womenfolk is not compromised anywhere across the globe and the culprits involved in both the cases are awarded exemplary punishments so as to deter others in committing such heinous crimes.
I have very fond memories of this city. I have spent some of my formative years in Bombay now Mumbai, as a student at St. Xavier’s College. Those four years are one of the most memorable days of my life. Even after my student life I visited the city more than a dozen times.
I have already started feeling nostalgic. It feels as if I am still a Xavier’s student living in the college dormitory located not very far from Metro Cinema and the offices of Times of India and the old Victoria Terminus. It was just a few kilometers away from the street dotted with five-star hotels including the Taj Mahal and, of course, the Gateway of India stood there to welcome all and sundry.
Despite having spent four fabulous years in a densely populated city (Mumbai is ranked fourth in the world), I never faced any problem and always felt safe and secure.
Like every city on the face of earth, Mumbai has its own unique culture. Live and let live seemed to be the motto of the Mumbai dwellers. I followed the same pattern; my life revolved around my college, hostel, theaters and the Irani restaurant (a generic name for small-time hotels offering tea and other eatables) famous for its wonderful tea.
Oh! not to forget the famous and lush green ground or maidan (as it is called in Hindi/Urdu) facing our college.
After crossing that ground one would find himself at the Church Gate Station and the Regal Cinema.
The city — situated on the west coast of India — is the financial hub of the republic and contributes the most to the national exchequer in the form of taxes.
The city and suburbs lie on the west coast of India and it is the financial hub of the republic making a great deal of money and contributing more taxes than any other to the national exchequer. Its transportation system is very well organized and used to have buses and suburban services in addition to what used to be its archaic trams now defunct.
Besides its various tourist attractions the city has a large number of hotels stretching from the airport to Colaba Road near the Gateway of India.
It is not only the name of the city that has changed. Over the time the city has also undergone drastic changes in terms of civic infrastructure. Each time I visit Mumbai, it looks different. We can easily call it a modern concrete jungle with an impressive skyline.
Besides the concrete, greenery has also increased and some people attribute this change to the Shiv Sena-led government.
By the way, the deceased leader of Shiv Sena, Bal Thackeray, used to be a cartoonist at the Free Press Journal daily, the worst performing newspaper in the city.
Anyway, let’s move to education. There are top-notch educational institutions in Mumbai. Of those, St. Xavier’s still tops the list followed by Wilson College and Elphinstone College. St. Xavier’s is run by the Jesuit Society. Since it is one of the top most institutions, the admission criteria are also very strict so as to maintain high standards. But it is not true that preference is given to Catholic students or to the elite. Admissions are granted purely and strictly on merit. Not far from the college is the famous Marine Drive by the Arabian Sea, where we used to go to on foot at any time from early evening to our hostel’s closing time.
Nearby are the Mumbai University and its famous tower and the building of the High Court. The old Flora Fountain is just a stone’s throw from here. Like the airport and the Victoria Station, Flora Fountain has also had a change in nomenclature, a hallmark of the Shiv Sena.
A fairly large number of my friends used to live in Bandra and Mahim, which are not far from the airport.
Now here comes the most important feature of this city. Yes, the tinsel town! Bollywood receives a stream of visitors wishing to witness the cameras roll and churn out blockbusters all the year round.
Special areas are dedicated for this industry where films are shot. I once visited a film shooting location with my friend — the famous critic and writer — Khaled Mohammed, who had served as the editor-in-chief of Filmfare magazine of the Times of India Group.
I vividly remember the scene that was shot there. A palace was set on fire as the script demanded and after the shot, the fire was put out and within a few hours the place was cleaned as if nothing had happened there. Incidentally, Khaled quit the magazine and started producing films. But he was an acerbic critic who spared very few films. I was sure he would not spare his own films either.
Bollywood produces 150 to 200 films a year out of the total Indian production of nearly 1,000. The Bollywood stars are certainly more famous than the prime ministers and nearly as famous as the Gandhis and the Nehrus. It rakes in billions of rupees a year some of which from the Gulf where they are lapped up by the Indian expatriates and the Arab population. In fact they are so popular there that many films are either dubbed in English or Arabic or entirely in Arabic with Arabic accents varying between Dubai accent and good Arabic Lebanese accent. The same period has also seen a rising stream of books in English about the city, some of them extremely good and worth reading. Of these I can recommend a book called Maximum City by Suketu Mehta published a few years ago and sent to me soon after its publication. In the nearly 600-page book the author covered every nook and cranny of the old but newly developed city that owes much of its glory to the last l00 years of the British raj touching on various aspects from its higher echelons to its underworld. The man writes with understanding and professional appreciation of its myriad problems as well as its lovely social life whether it is happening in Colaba Causeway or in Bandra Hill.
The author’s collection of data about Mumbai is awesome and I expect not only more editions but also a greater volume of facts and observations in the next few years.

• Farouk Luqman is an eminent journalist based in Jeddah.
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