City of Gold

Started reading "City of Gold" by Gillian Tindall this weekend. Felt really nice to read about the history of Bombay. Gillian presents the topic with an admirable amount of honesty, in spite of being a Brit, herself. There is no glossing over the materialistic motives of the British behind developing Bombay. At the same time, there is also a definite mention of the resistance of the original inhabitants against establishment of any sort of order.

The complete cycle of development that Bombay has gone through, from a small forgotten group of islands with coconut jungles to a bustling port to the Gateway to India from the west to a metropolis. Since this book was written in the 1980's, the recent developments of Bombay are not covered. The roads are described in graphic detail. So much so, that you can actually imagine walking down those roads and recognising the landmarks mentioned. Nothing much seems to have changed today.

One also gets to discover the origin of the names of certain areas, which we simply took for granted. For example, Pydhonie gets its name from the foot wash which used to exist on the shores of the creek that separated the islands. Although the creek has long since dried up, the name sticks. In fact, I got to know from the book that the garden I used to play in as a kid, near Charni Road station, was once a cemetery!!! Spooky, huh??