Mumbai

Monuments

[ Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus | Flora Fountain | Bombay High Court | Old Bombay | Bombay Castle | Gilbert Hill | Gateway of India | The Municipal Corporation Building | Girgaon ]

Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus
Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (formerly Victoria Terminus), better known by its acronym VT (Veetee), is a historic railway station of the Mumbai suburban railway, as well as for some long-distance trains. It serves as the headquarters of the Central Railways in India and is is one of the busiest railway stations in India. On July 2, 2004 the station was nominated a World Heritage Site by the World Heritage Committee of UNESCO.

The Structure
Victoria Station, Bombay, around 1903

The station building, built in 1888, is a magnificent and ethereal building designed in the Gothic style of architecture. The building exhibits a fusion of influences from Victorian Italianate Gothic Revival architecture and traditional Indian architecture. Internally, the wood carving, tiles, ornamental iron and brass railings, grills for the ticket offices, the balustrades for the grand staircases and other ornaments were the work of students at the Bombay School of Art. The station stands as an example of 19th century railway architectural marvels for its advanced structural and technical solutions.

History
Fredrick Williams Stevens designed the station, a consulting architect in 1887-1888 for a princely sum of 16.14 lakhs in those days. Stevens earned the commission to construct the station after a masterpiece watercolour sketch by draughtsman Axel Herman. After earning the commission, Stevens went on a ten-month trip to Europe to make a detailed study of the stations there. St Pancras station in London bears some resemblance to Victoria Terminus.

It took 10 years to complete and was originally named "Victoria Terminus" in honour of the reigning Queen Victoria. In 1996, in response to demands by the Shiv Sena and in keeping with the policy of renaming locations with Indian names, the station was renamed by the state government after Chhatrapati Shivaji, a famed 17th century Maratha king. Since the moniker Victoria Terminus, or VT, has been long-standing, its use among the city inhabitants is still widespread.

Bori Bunder
Bori Bunder literally means a place where sacks are stored. This was one of the areas along the Eastern Shore line of Bombay, India, which was used as a storehouse for goods imported and exported from Bombay. In the 1850s, the Great Indian Peninsular Railway built its railway terminus in this area and the station took its name as Bori Bunder. It was eventually named Victoria Terminus, after the then reigning Queen and has been subsequently renamed Chatrapati Shivaji Terminus after Maharashtra's chieftain. Thought the shortened name is now CST, it still continues to be referred to as VT by the masses, not out of any sense of nostalgia but just out of practice.

Top    

Flora Fountain
Flora Fountain is a stone fountain situated in Fort business district in the heart of South Mumbai, Mumbai, India. Flora Fountain was built in 1864. The fountain depicts the Roman goddess Flora. It is now a heritage structure. It was built at a total cost of Rs. 47,000, a princely sum in those days.

History
It was erected by the Agri-Horticultural society of Western India out of a donation of Rs 20,000 by Cursetjee Fardoonjee Parekh. It is sculpted in imported Portland stone. It now wears a white coat of oil paint.

Flora Fountain was originally to be named after Sir Bartle Frère, the governor of Bombay at the time. However, the name was changed before the fountain was unveiled. It stood at the approximate center of town.

The fountain stands exactly at the point where the original Church Gate of Bombay Fort stood.

Renamed
The square in which the fountain stands was officially named in 1960 as Hutatma Chowk (Martyr's Crossroad). Though city residents more popularly use the term Fountain.

Hutatma Chowk
Hutatma Chowk is the official name of a square in South Mumbai.

The square hosts Flora Fountain and was known by that name. It was officially renamed in 1960 in memory of the members of Samyukta Maharashtra Samiti, who lost their lives in an altercation with the police. A statue of 'Martyr with a Flame' stands next to Flora Fountain.

Top    

Bombay High Court
The Bombay High Court was inaugurated on August 14, 1862. The work on the present building of the High Court was commenced in April 1871 and completed in November 1878. It was designed by British engineer Col. J.A. Fuller. The first sitting in this building was on January 10, 1879. Architecture: Gothic revival in the Early English style. It is 562 feet long and 189 feet wide. To the west of the central tower are two octagonal towers. The statues of Justice and Mercy are atop this building.

The 125th anniversary of the building is slated to be marked by the release of a book, commissioned by the Bar Association, called "The Bombay High Court: The Story of the Building - 1878-2003" by local historians Rahul Mehrotra and Sharada Dwivedi.

Sanctioned strength: 60. A petition is pending to increase the number to 75 judges.

The court handles 3.4 lakh cases, both civil and criminal. 32 sitting judges of the court disposed around 2,000 cases each in 2004. The court has a ratio of 1:1.61 million: judges to people.

The court has jurisdiction over the states of Maharashtra, Goa and the Union territories of Daman and Diu and Dadra and Nagar Haveli. The court has benches in Nagpur, Aurangabad and Panaji.

Although the name of the city was changed from Bombay to Mumbai in 1995, the Court as an institution did not follow suit and remained as the Bombay High Court.
Chief Justice: Dalveer Bhandari.

Top    

Old Bombay
Old Bombay was used to refer to the area, which was formed by the merging of the seven original islands of Mumbai, India. The term is now ancient and was used from the 19th century until the 1980s. The more widely used term today is just the word 'town'.

When the islands were merged, the area became Old Bombay. The region north of this became Greater Bombay; now known as the 'Suburbs'. Greater Bombay encompasses an area 5 times the size of Old Bombay.

The region of Old Bombay consists of downtown South Mumbai that is the richest area in India and the nerve centre of Indian commerce.

The Worli Fort is an ancient British fort in Worli area in Bombay, India. The fort, often mistakenly referred to as being built by the Portuguese, was actually built by the British around 1675. The fort, built on the Worli hill, overlooked the Mahim Bay at a time the city was made up of just seven islands. It was used as a lookout for enemy ships and pirates.

The upkeep of the fort has been impossible due to its inaccessibility, as the roads leading to it are completely blocked by illegal hutments that have cropped up over the years, only to be overlooked by the local authorities for the sake of electoral gain and bribes paid for allowing illegal constructions. The fort is completely in ruins today and a slum has enveloped the edifice, making it a den for illegal activities like the brewing of illicit liquor within its confines. A bell tower peeps out of the ruins and the ramparts are used to dry clothes. Historians have often called for the protection of the area but their efforts have fallen on deaf ears. This in spite of an NGO claiming to have adopted the Worli Village, where the fort is located.

One ray of hope is the new Bandra-Worli sea link that will skirt around the Worli peninsula, bringing the fort back into the public eye, and hopefully, will lead to some action from the government.

Top    

Bombay Castle
Bombay Castle is one of the oldest defensive structures built in the city of Mumbai (formerly Bombay). The current castle is a structure built by the British on the site of a manor built by a Portuguese nobleman Garcia de Orta. Orta had leased the island of Bombay from the King of Portugal between 1554 and 1570.

The castle was built of local blue Kurla stone and red laterite stone from the Konkan region to the south. In 1662, after the islands came under the hands of the British, the British East India Company took possession of the castle in 1665. Over the next ten years, they built a defensive structure around the manor. Around the same time, a wall was being built around a new urban centre. The wall was later demolished in 1865 after the city grew rapidly. Fragments of this wall however still exist in some areas.

Few records of the original Portuguese castle remain and historians are trying to piece together the original location of the manor. Two gates of the manor are located within INS Angre, a naval station in South Mumbai. A sundial thought to date back to the Portuguese era is also present. This sundial does not mark out the 12 hours of a day, but marks out certain periods, which are deemed to be important to people of those days.

The main building within this castle is the Governor's House in which Gerald Aungier, the first Governor of Bombay used to stay. The residence was later moved to Parel and then to Malabar Hill over the next two centuries. The current building houses the offices of the Flag Oficer Commander-in-Chief of the Western Naval Command.

Top    

Gilbert Hill
Gilbert Hill is a 200-foot (90 m) monolith column of black basalt rock in Andheri, Maharashtra, India. The rock has a sheer vertical face and was created when molten lava was squeezed out of the earth's clefts during the Mesozoic Era about 65 million years ago. During that era, molten lava had spread around most of the Indian states of Maharashtra, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh, covering an area of 50,000 km². The volcanic eruptions were also responsible for the destruction of plant and animal life during that era.

According to experts, this rare geological phenomenon was the remnants of a ridge and had clusters of vertical columns in nearby Jogeshwari, which were quarried off two decades ago. These vertical columns are similar to the Devil's Tower in Wyoming, and the Devil's Post Pile National Monument in eastern California, USA.

Atop the rock column, two Hindu temples, the Gaodevi and Durgamata temples, set in a small garden, are accessed by a steep staircase carved into the rock. The hill offers a panoramic view of the city of Bombay.

To get there via road, turn left at Kasimali Sakur Chowk on SV Road, just before Andheri railway station and asks for directions to the temple atop Gilbert Hill, which is a minute's, drive away.

Top    

Gateway of India
The Gateway of India is a monument located in Mumbai, India. Located on the waterfront in South Mumbai, the Gateway is a basalt arch 26 metres high. The Gateway is traditionally the first thing visitors arriving by boat would see of Bombay. Behind the Gateway steps lead down to the waterfront, where boat trips can be had to locations such as Elephanta Island.

The Gateway is built from yellow basalt and reinforced concrete. While Indo-Saracenic in architectural style, elements are derived from the Muslim architectural styles of 16th century Gujarat. The central dome is 15 metres in diameter and 26 metres above ground at its highest point. The whole harbour front was realigned in order to come in line with a planned esplanade, which would sweep down to the centre of the town. The cost of the construction was Rs. 21 lakhs, borne mainly by the Government of India. For lack of funds, the approach road was never built, and so the Gateway stands at an angle to the road leading up to it.

History
The Gateway of India was built to commemorate the visit of King George V and Queen Mary to Bombay, prior to the Darbar in Delhi in December 1911. The foundation stone was laid on March 31, 1911 by the Governor of Bombay, with George Wittet's final design sanctioned in August 1914. Between 1915 and 1919 work proceeded on reclamations at Apollo Bunder for the land on which the gateway and the new sea wall would be built. The foundations were completed in 1920, and construction was finished in 1924. The Gateway was opened on December 4, 1924 by the Viceroy, the Earl of Reading.

The last British troops to leave India, the First Battalion of the Somerset Light Infantry, passed through the gate in a ceremony on February 28, 1948.

The adjacent Taj Mahal Palace and Taj Intercontinental hotels are a major landmark, and a popular tourist destination.

The parking lot near the monument was the site of a terrorist bomb attack on August 25, 2003, which killed several people.

Top    

The Municipal Corporation Building
Mumbai houses the offices of the Bombay Municipal Corporation. Construction of the building began on December 9, 1884, with the laying of the foundation stone by the then Viceroy of India, Lord Ripon. The design of the building, based on the Gothic Revival style, was presented by Fredrick Williams Stevens, which was selected over the Indo-Saracenic design submitted by R. F. Chisholm. Completed in 1893, the building is known for its 255 feet tall tower.

Top    

Girgaon
Girgaon (or Girgaum) is an area in the city of South Mumbai (Maharashtra, India). Culture in Girgaon, although diverse and varied, still binds all the people here together in some form of common identification. Girgaon culture - particularly food, drama, and clothing - is characterised by an unmistakable unity and continuity, despite its having passed through many changes. Though there are diverse languages, religions, traditions, festivals, and attire, the rich heritage of the culture survives; Girgaon people, even today, are highly influenced by the traditions and values of yesteryear despite the recent movement toward westernisation.

Areas
Each area of Girgaon follows its own customs. Communities like the Marathi-speakers, Gujarati, Konkani, Jains, Christians, and Hindus follow their own customs and rituals. They celebrate different festivals, follow different customs for birth, marriage, death, and other important events. Therefore, while it is easy to sense that Girgaon is different from other societies, it is very difficult to define conclusively what is essentially Girgaon, or to see how such a diversity of peoples and cultures can be related to one another.

The areas in Girgaon are: Batwadi, Banama lane, Kotachiwadi, Nikadwari lane, Kandewadi, Mumbhat, Borbhat lane, Mangalwadi, Krantinagar,Thakurdwar

It was founded in the late 18th century by a Pathare Prabhu named Khot, who sold plots of land to local East Indian families. There used to be 65 of these houses, now reduced to 28 as old buildings are being pulled down to make way for new skyscrapers.

Top