Somewhere underneath the vast overcrowded urban explosion, lays a cluster of seven disjointed islands, collectively referred to as Mumbai. Formerly named Bombay, Mumbai is the organization of India. Based on records out there, the city of Mumbai was 1st established because of the Hindu rulers through the Deccan Plateau, followed from the Muslims & the English.
Mumbai has been a trading port, since time immemorial and thus important economically. The economy of cotton was scaled because of the establishment of cotton mills in 1854. The spice naive British saw huge trading potential and thus set up regular shipping lines for cotton, spice and tea trade, between Mumbai & London.
When British Governor Gerald Aungier set up camp on Mumbai Island, he established the judiciary, drained the malarial swamps, built the earliest docks and invited migrant workers from other parts of India.
Mumbai started to experience overpopulation, poor sanitation and political unrest. The Indian National Congress (later, the Congress Party of India), held its 1st meeting for Indian Independence. Despite the earliest Indian film industry; opposition to British rule grew strong. Mahatma Gandhi, commonly known as the Mahatma (’Great Soul’) lived on Laburnam Road upon his return from South Africa, launching his Quit India campaign.
Fast-forward two hundred years and Mumbai is India’s ‘Maximum City’ bold, brash, fast and frenetic, always faddish, fashion-obsessed and undeniably animated in all aspects of its life.
Three centuries of development have transformed seven scrubby islands into a mighty metropolis of towering apartment blocks, colonial mansions, seafront promenades and air-conditioned shopping malls. If Delhi stands out as the seat of history and Kolkata the seat of culture, Mumbai will be the address of film and fashion - many leading designers are based there and the Bollywood movie machine churns out a staggering one thousand films a year.
Mumbai is where Indian fantasies of wealth and glamour engage in a bizarre dance with poverty and slums, and where economic boom flirts with social collapse. More than 60% of Mumbaikers live in shantytowns, yet the city also boasts some of the most expensive real estate in the country. Plans are afoot to build a futuristic new town of towering skyscrapers in the north of this city, transforming Mumbai into the Shanghai of India.
