Explore Mumbai
At the end of the seventeenth century, Colaba was little more than the last in a straggling line of rocky islands extending to the lighthouse that stood on Mumbai’s southernmost point. Today, the original outlines of the promontory (whose name derives from the Koli fishermen who first lived here) have been submerged under a mass of dilapidated colonial tenements, hotels, bars, restaurants and handicraft emporia. If you never venture beyond the district, you’ll get a very distorted picture of Mumbai; even though it’s the main tourist enclave and a trendy hang-out for the city’s rich young things, Colaba has retained the sleazy feel of the port it used to be.
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The Gateway of India
The Gateway of India
Commemorating the visit of King George V and Queen Mary in 1911, India’s own honey-coloured Arc de Triomphe was built in 1924 by George Wittet, the architect responsible for many of the city’s grandest constructions. Blending indigenous Gujarati motifs with high Victorian pomp, it was originally envisaged as a ceremonial disembarkation point for passengers alighting from the P&O steamers, although nowadays the only boats bobbing about at the bottom of its stone staircase are the launches that ferry tourists across the harbour to Elephanta Island.
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The Taj Hotel
The Taj Hotel
Directly behind the Gateway, the older hotel in the Taj Mahal Palace & Tower complex stands as a monument to local pride in the face of colonial oppression. Its patron, the Parsi industrialist J. N. Tata, is said to have built the old Taj as an act of revenge after he was refused entry to what was then the best hotel in town, the “whites only” Watson’s. The ban proved to be its undoing. Watson’s disappeared long ago, but the Taj still presides imperiously over the seafront, the preserve of Mumbai’s air-kissing jet set. Lesser mortals are allowed in to experience the tea lounge, shopping arcades and vast air-conditioned lobby – there’s also a fabulously luxurious loo off the corridor to the left of the main desk.
