Mumbai, India – the good and the bad: Bollywood, British Raj relics, the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, but pricey accommodation, traffic jams and deadly trains
- With a population of over 20 million, Mumbai is the home of Bollywood film studios and boasts some stunning colonial-era buildings
- But the streets are traffic-choked and dirty and hotel rooms expensive. Then there are the trains, which are so crowded passengers are sometimes killed
Originally made up of seven islands separated by mosquito-infested swamps, India’s richest and most powerful metropolis is now home to 21 million people. Or is it 23 million?
A land of opportunity, Mumbai is known as the City of Dreams. An estimated 10,000 new migrants swell the population every day, most of them arriving at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (CSMT).
The railway station was built by the British to commemorate the golden jubilee of Queen Victoria, in 1887. It was a time of grandiose colonial statements and no expense was spared.
Not everyone comes to Mumbai (or Bombay, as it was known until 1996) by train, however.
In 1911, King George V and Queen Mary arrived at Apollo Bunder pier aboard the HMS Medina. To honour the royal visit, the Gateway of India was constructed at the site.
The imposing monument overlooking the Arabian Sea also served as a ceremonial entrance to the city for viceroys and other dignitaries, and, in 1948, it was the final departure point for British troops, after they had marched through Bombay’s streets, marking the end of colonial rule.
A two-minute walk from the Gateway of India, the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel opened its doors in 1903.
The ultra-modern property offered a tantalising glimpse of 20th century style and innovation – a fact emphasised in the breathless tones of the prospectus: “The Hotel will be lighted throughout with electric lights, and many lifts, also worked by electricity, will convey residents from floor to floor with comfort.”
The iconic establishment boasts an impressive roll-call of VIP visitors, including Britain’s Prince (now King) Charles and Hollywood superstar Tom Cruise. United States president Barack Obama booked the entire 285-room hotel and in 1931, a certain M.K. Gandhi spoke there at a private dinner.
Staying with the rich and famous, Mumbai is the filmmaking capital of India. Behind-the-scenes tours of Bollywood studios, dance workshops and filming locations provide a window into the world’s most prolific movie industry, which produces about 1,000 films a year, notably the Oscar-winning Slumdog Millionaire (2008), parts of which were filmed in Dharavi.
One of the world’s largest slums, Dharavi is home to a million people and in 2019 was named by travel website Tripadvisor.com as the top visitor experience in India, beating the Taj Mahal.
Not wanting to miss a trick, travel agencies organise tours that pair glitzy Bollywood with the Dharavi slums.
Touted as educational, the tours are promoted as giving visitors a unique perspective on everyday life in a shanty town. Tour companies claim this community-based approach can empower the less fortunate and help change people’s perceptions of deprived communities by breaking down negative stereotypes.
Downsides to Mumbai
Detractors describe Dharavi slum tours as “poverty tourism” and even voyeurism. They question whether the excursions offer a genuine insight into the lives of marginalised sections of society or simply provide wealthy visitors with a chance to gawk at poor people, like animals in a zoo, before returning to their luxury resorts in time for dinner.
Tripadvisor may have crowned Dharavi as the top visitor experience in India but another survey conducted by the online travel platform a few years earlier ranked Mumbai as the worst place in the world for tourists.
Categories where the city performed poorly included “cleanliness of streets”, “family friendliness” and “attractions”. It also fared badly when it came to “ease of getting around”.
Where to travel in 2024, according to the experts – and where to avoid
Talking of which, the ride back to that luxury resort after a Dharavi tour will probably take a while due to Mumbai’s outdated and inadequate transport infrastructure.
Travel by bus or taxi and you could be trapped for hours. Local motorists spend an average of 85 minutes a day stuck in snarl-ups, which, according to a study by insurance provider GoShorty, makes Mumbai third worst in the world for time wasted sitting in traffic.
Trains are usually faster but passengers are packed in like sardines and at the mercy of nimble-fingered pickpockets. Every day, almost 8 million commuters use the city’s suburban railway network and CSMT is overwhelmed during rush hour. And that’s without the added disruption caused by the monsoon season.
In July 2005, Mumbai endured its wettest day on record. Trains ground to a halt, Dharavi shanties and other low-lying areas were submerged and more than 1,000 people lost their lives.
One way of beating the gridlock is to choose a base in an area such as Colaba, where restaurants, cafes and sightseeing highlights are clustered together and thus accessible on foot.
The problem is, residential real estate prices in Mumbai are the highest in India, and Colaba has some of the priciest property in the city. Think this doesn’t affect you as a tourist? Wait until you see the hotel rates.
The Taj Mahal Palace Hotel has survived earthquakes, labour strikes and two world wars but it was the events of November 26, 2008, that nearly finished off the Grand Old Lady.
At 9.30pm, two Pakistani terrorists entered the lobby, pulled assault rifles from their backpacks and began spraying bullets.
Twenty guests, 11 staff and Lucy the sniffer dog were killed during a 60-hour siege. In a show of defiance, parts of India’s most luxurious hotel were renovated and reopened within a month.
Security upgrades incorporated armed guards, state-of-the-art X-ray baggage scanners and metal detectors.
A deadly problem
Returning to Mumbai’s railway network, a staggering 2,507 people died on suburban tracks in 2022, according to a report by the Government Railway Police.
Most of the fatalities occurred when commuters were hit by trains as they crossed the rails instead of using footbridges, or fell from running trains.
Some were electrocuted by overhead power cables, others bludgeoned by trackside poles as they leaned out of overcrowded trains.
The number of Mumbaikars committing suicide (jumping in front of oncoming trains, lying on tracks, etc) was calculated at 100.
