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| Rahul Mehrotra & Sharada Dwivedi |
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| Edited extracts and photos from 'BOMBAY: The Cities
Within' written by Sharada Dwivedi & Rahul Mehrotra 1995, 2001 |
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| The Genesis of the 'Maximum City' |
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“The fishermen were here
first. Before the East India Company built its Fort...at the dawn
of time, when Bombay was a dumbell shaped island tapering, at the
center, to a narrow shining strand...when Mazgaon and Worli, Matunga
and Mahim, Salsette and Colaba were islands, too -in short before
reclamation...turned the Seven Isles into a long peninsula like an
outstretched, grasping hand, reaching westwards into the Arabian Sea;
in this primeval world before clocktowers, the fishermen - who were
called Kolis - sailed in Arab dhows, spreading red sails against the
setting sun. They caught pomfret and crabs, and made fish-lovers of
us all...
- Salman Rushdie, Midnight's Children
Bombay was not an indigenous Indian city. It was built by the British
expressly for maintaining trade links with India and was never perhaps
expected to become a large town. Thus it was neither oriented nor
situated around a sacred place, nor was it structured in relation
to the cardinal points and directions as a traditional Indian town
might have been built. In fact, being primarily set up as a port,
it developed looking out to the ocean with the quay as its focus.
How did a sparsely populated collection of marshy islands become urbs
prima in indis? |
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Beginnings |
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The archipelago that developed into the thriving metropolis now
known as Mumbai was indeed once populated by fishermen called Kolis.
Their stone goddess, Mumbadevi, would eventually lend its name to
the city we know today.
The Kanheri caves, dating to the first century AD, are some of the
earliest remaining structures. The caves were built by Buddhist
monks and used as a monastery and shrine and are important evidence
of the rise and fall of Buddhism in India. Until the 13th century,
the islands belonged to the Silhara dynasty, who built the other
main historic site still standing – the Elephanta caves.
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| Old Bombay was mostly populated by small,
indigenous communities. |
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| Read
more...
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The West turns East |
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In 1508, the Portuguese arrived. Francisco de Almeida, a nobleman
and explorer, sailed into a natural deep harbour and immediately
recognised its potential. The Shah of Gujarat – was forced
to hand power to the Portuguese in 1534...
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Read
more... |
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A City emerges |
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| The building of the
Great Breach between Worli and Bombay at Mahalaxmi in the 18th century,
together with the completion of the Sion causeway in 1805 and Colaba
Causeway in 1838... |
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Read
more... |
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A New Bombay, A new India |
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The early decades of the 20th
century saw monumental changes in the political and civic life of
Bombay. Political unrest in the city intensified in 1907 when the
Bombay press began to criticise the Government’s repressive
measures...
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Read
more... |
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To the Present |
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With Bombay at breaking point in terms
of congestion and living space, the Bombay Metropolitan Regional Planning
Board took steps in 1967 to promote a New Bombay on the mainland...
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Read
more... |
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