MUMBAI SANDWICH
This affordable streetfood staple
typically contains beetroot,
boiled potatoes, cucumbers,
tomatoes, onion and
mint chutney.CRICKET
Cricket is revered in Mumbai, as
it is throughout the subcontinent.
The Indian Premier League team
here is the Mumbai Indians,
whose home — no laughing now
— is the Wankhede Stadium.COLABA MARKET
If you don’t like haggling, then
this absolutely isn’t the place
for you. Just a couple of blocks
away from the opulence of the Taj
Mahal Palace hotel, the relentless
vibrance of the Colaba Market is
a handy reminder that you’re still
very much in India.LEOPOLD CAFE
A city institution since 1871, the
Leopold Cafe was one of the
targets of the city’s 2008 terrorist
attacks. It’s since come to be a
symbol of defiance and cherished
by most Mumbaikars.MARINE DRIVE
If you’ve overindulged on the
paneer and roti, head out for
an early-morning run along
Marine Drive. You’ll be joined by
hundreds or thousands of locals
also keen to get their exercise fix
— whether that’s a jog or a spot of
yoga — before the sun becomes
too intense. Later, couples and
families emerge to enjoy a seaside
perambulation along the two-
and-a-quarter-mile promenade. When in Mumbai Fort
“They used to say that the streets were
built by opium and the buildings by cotton,”
says Sneha Patil, momentarily sounding
like she’s been chasing the dragon herself.
The guide from Khaki Tours is taking me
on the popular Castle2Gateway walk, which
focuses on the colonial history around
the Fort neighbourhood at the south of
Mumbai’s peninsula.
Although this part of India had already
been colonised by the Portuguese and Dutch,
it went through an economic explosion
under British rule. At the heart of that boom
time were the opium and cotton trades.
To come to Mumbai and not visit Fort is
akin to visiting New York City for the first
time and avoiding Manhattan — it’s possible,
but surely not advisable.
This former economic hub remains one
of the city’s most prosperous areas and is,
by far, its grandest, architecturally. As the
opium and cotton barons grew rich, so they
erected vanity projects around the city. The
majority still stand today.
“This is one of my favourite spots in the
city,” says Sneha, as she looks for a spot on
Kala Ghoda Square where we’re less likely to
get run over by a marauding auto rickshaw.
Spinning on the spot, she gives me a grand
tour of wildly varying architectural styles.“From here, you can see the Rajabai
Clock Tower, which is Venetian gothic,
then the former Watson’s Hotel, which
is an industrial pre-fab. Next to that
we have the Army and Navy Building
which is typically neoclassical. Next
there’s gothic, then Elphinstone College,
which is renaissance revival, then come
round here and we have traditional
Indian and then finally art deco. It’s
really remarkable.”
We move on, pushing south towards
Mumbai’s most famous landmarks: the
Gateway of India and the Taj Mahal
Palace hotel. They too date back to the
British Raj, and their stories are the stuff
of local legend. The satisfyingly chunky,
endlessly photographed Gateway was
famously built to commemorate the arrival
to India of King-Emperor George V and
Queen-Empress Mary, the first British
monarchs to visit the country. “Except it
wasn’t finished until 13 years after they were
here,” says Sneha with a smile. And what
about the Taj Palace, just across the road?
“Well, the story is that Mr Jamsetji Tat [an
Indian industrialist] decided to build it after
being turned away from Watson’s Hotel
because he wasn’t white.”
And is that true? “Well, I like the story
anyway,” says Sneha knowingly.NEIGHBOURHOOD52 nationalgeographic.co.uk/travel