Mumabai -Maharastra

Mumbai is the bubblegum glamour of Bollywood cinema, shopping malls full of designer labels, cricket on the Oval Maidan, promenading families eating bhelpuri on the beach at Chowpatty, red double-decker buses queuing in grinding traffic jams and the infamous cages of the red-light district.

This pungent drama is played out against a Victorian townscape more reminiscent of a prosperous 19th-century English industrial city than anything you'd expect to find on the edge of the Arabian S

The best time to explore Mumbai is between the months of September and April, when the weather is relatively dry and cool. From June to September the skies open, sometimes with catastrophic results - the floods of 2005 killed nearly a thousand and left thousands more homeless. During the monsoon season, ferries to Elephanta Island and beyond stop, and trips to Sanjay Gandhi National Park and the forts and cave temples around Mumbai are often impossible. YOu might also want to avoid the months just before the monsoon breaks, when temperatures can top 40ºC (140ºF).

Without doubt, the biggest spectacle in the Mumbai calendar is Ganesh Chaturthi, an 11-day Hindu festival that rocks the city every August/September. This colourful event reaches a climax when huge images of the elephant-headed god are immersed in the sea, most notably off Chowpatty Beach. The largest effigies are hauled into the river by crane and all are painted in surreal, fluorescent colours.

Weather

Mumbai is prone to high temperatures, high humidity and tropical rain, though the climate is tempered by the influence of the Arabian Sea. Rainfall averages a soggy 2200mm (85in) per year, with the heaviest falls coming in the monsoon season from June to September. Recent years have seen massive floods, cited by many as evidence of global warming. January is the coolest month, though 12°C (53°F) is about as low as it goes. March and October tend to swelter, with temperatures rising as high as 38°C (100°F).

Details	Neighbourhood	Keyword
Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (Prince of Wales Museum) SP Mukherji Chowk	Kala Ghoda	museum
Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (Victoria Terminus) cnr Dr DN Rd & Nagar Chowk	Fort	government
Chowpatty Beach	Chowpatty	beach
Colaba	Colaba	waterfront markets
Cooperage Football Ground MK Rd	Colaba	stadium/oval
Crawford Market Lokmanya Tilak Rd	Kalbadevi	markets
Elephanta Island	Elephanta Island	religious/spiritual island
Gateway of India	Colaba	monument
Haji Ali Mosque	Breach Candy	religious/spiritual
High Court Eldon Rd	Fort	government
Jehangir Art Gallery 161B MG Rd	Kala Ghoda	art gallery
Keneseth Eliyahoo Synagogue Dr VB Gandhi Marg	Kala Ghoda	religious/spiritual
Mahalaxmi Racecourse Keshavro Khadye Marg	Mahalaxmi	stadium/oval
Malabar Hill around BG Kher Marg	Chowpatty	significant house
Mani Bhavan museum 19 Laburnum Rd	Breach Candy	museum

Pre-20th-Century History

The seven islands that now form Mumbai were first home to the Koli fisherfolk, whose shanties still occupy parts of the city shoreline today. The islands were ruled by a succession of Hindu dynasties, invaded by Muslims in the 14th century and then ceded to Portugal by the Sultan of Gujarat in 1534. The Portuguese did little to develop them before the major island of the group was included in Catherine of Braganza's dowry when she married England's Charles II in 1661. The British Government took possession of all seven islands in 1665 but leased them three years later to the East India Company for a meagre annual rent of GBS10.00.

Bombay soon developed as a trading port thanks to its fine harbour and the number of merchants who were attracted from other parts of India by the British promise of religious freedom and land grants. Migrants included sizeable communities of Muslim Gujaratis, south Indian Hindus fleeing Portuguese persecution in Goa, and Zoroastrian Parsis fleeing persecution by Muslims in Persia. Their arrival, and that of later immigrant groups, laid the basis for Bombay's celebrated multicultural society. Within 20 years, the presidency of the East India Company was transferred to Bombay from Surat, and the town soon became the trading headquarters for the whole west coast of India.

Bombay's fort was built in the 1720s, and soon after land-reclamation projects began the century-long process of joining the seven islands into a single mass. Although Bombay grew steadily during the 18th century, it remained isolated from the surrounding territory until the British defeated the Marathas and annexed substantial portions of Western India in 1818. Growth was spurred by the arrival of steam ships and the construction of the first railway in Asia from Bombay to Thane in 1853. Cotton mills were built in the city the following year, and the American Civil War - which temporarily dried up Britain's supply of cotton - sparked Bombay's cotton boom. The fort walls were dismantled in 1864 and the city embarked on a major building spree as it sought to construct a civic townscape to match its new-found wealth and status. The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 and the massive expansion of Bombay's docks cemented the city's future as India's primary port.
Modern History

Bombay played a formative role in the struggle for Independence, hosting the first Indian National Congress in 1885 and the launch of the 'Quit India' campaign in 1942. After Independence the city became capital of the Bombay Presidency but this was divided on linguistic grounds into Maharashtra and Gujarat in 1960. Since then, a massive influx of rural (especially Maharashtran) migrants has strained the city's infrastructure and altered its demographics. The most unfortunate development was the rise of a militant pro-Marathi regionalist movement, spearheaded by the Shiv Sena municipal government, which shook the city's multicultural foundations by discriminating against non-Maharashtrans and Muslims. Communalist tensions erupted into murderous riots in the aftermath of the destruction of the Ayodhya mosque in 1992, attributed to supporters of the Shiv Sena. This was followed by 13 bomb blasts that ripped through the city on a single day in March 1993, killing hundreds of Mumbaikers. Blame for the attacks fell squarely on Dawood Ibrahim, a Muslim gangster with links to Pakistan's secret service agency and the Taliban in Afghanistan; he is now believed to be hiding in Canada. In both cases, the dividing line between political establishment, organised crime and terrorism has been hard to pinpoint.

In 1996 the Shiv Sena officially renamed the city Mumbai. The change of name led to linguistic confusion, and signalled the intention of the Maharashtra state government to assert the city's Marathi identity. The Shiv Sena and their leader, Bal Thackeray (noted for his stated admiration of Adolf Hitler), ruled the state of Maharashtra behind the scenes until October 1999, when the administration that had protected them lost to the Congress Party in assembly elections. Attempts by the state's new political leaders to prosecute Thackeray in July 2000 for his alleged involvement in the 1992 anti-Muslim riots led to his supporters effectively shutting Mumbai down for several days through violent protests - the charges against this still influential person were then quickly withdrawn.

A further wave of violence followed in 2003, when Islamic militants detonated car bombs at the Gateway of India and Zaveri Bazaar in Kalbadevi. Muslim gangsters with links to Dawood Ibrahim have also been blamed for a string of blackmail and kidnapping attacks in the city, many targeting players in the Bollywood film industry.
Recent History

Mumbai leapt into the new millennium determined to become the most populous city in the world by 2020, when it might hold as many as 28.5 million people. This upcoming stature is, however, of little comfort to the 50% of the city's inhabitants who presently still live without water or electricity. Nothing demonstrates Mumbai's deteriorating environment better than a recent report which claims just breathing the air in Mumbai is equivalent to smoking 20 cigarettes a day: hence the popularity of recently opened 'oxygen bars'.

In June 2005 Maharashtra was devastated by flooding after the heaviest rains in Indian history. More than a thousand people died and 60,000 were left homeless, triggering fears of a new influx of refugees into Mumbai. The cost of the disaster has been estimated at a billion US dollars, putting future plans for urban renewal in doubt. Nevertheless, the municipal government is committed to the idea of creating a futuristic city of space-age skyscrapers on the north side of Mahim Creek. The ground work has already begun, but part of the scheme involves clearing the slums and there is no clear plan for relocating slum dwellers. So far, more than 300,000 people have been left homeless by slum demolitions.

The city was dealt a further blow in July 2006, when seven train bombs caused the deaths of over 180 people and injured over 700 more. Suspicion fell on the Kashmiri militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, although it denied responsibility for the attack. Tension between the Hindu and Muslim communities was exacerbated by the incident, but fortunately did not erupt, and the resilient city quickly resumed its routines.