Mumbai is best known as the country’s financial capital, a place that’s home to Bollywood and a city of dreams. But few know of the heritage associated with this city and even fewer are aware of the history behind the heritage.
This was exactly why, three years ago in January, the Indian Merchant’s Chamber, jointly with the VFS Global Services, organised the ‘Heritage Walk’.
On Saturday, on te third anniversary of the Heritage Walk, around 150 nationals from 22 countries were first taken to the Forbes building in Fort. The structure is the corporate office of India’s oldest company, founded in 1767.Not far away in the busy area of Sterling theatre are two former homes of the Tatas. The most recent is the magnificent looking white building built in Gothic style where the Tatas lived before Ratan Tata moved to a place near Navy Nagar. “Before this the Tatas used to live in Esplanade Court. They lived like the Europeans did. A servants’ quarter had a connecting staircase to the main building,” informs Jeanette DaSilva, one of the guides.
The walk then proceeded to the JN Petit library which has some of beautiful stain glass paintings, a few even sporting the pictures of the family who built it. It proceeded to structures on DN Road that illustrates how Rudyard Kipling brought changes to the architecture. “He ensured that instead of embellishments depicting leaves, there was a depiction of the occupation of locals,” says DaSilva.
Further down is the HSBC bank building that has a story few know of. Its vault is full of jewels of the Nizam of Hyderabad which were confiscated by the government. The last stop was the splendid University of Mumbai with the Rajabai Tower and the convocation halls. The tower was the gift from Premchand Roychand, only Indian that time who knew to write English, for is blind mother who could not see the watch. “It would chime every 15 minutes with different tunes,” says a guide.
“If tourists coming to Mumbai know that these places exist, they may stay an extra day to visit at these places. If 50 per cent of the tourists stay, the government can earn an extra Rs200 crores,” said Bhavna Doshi, president of the IMC.
“This is a better way to know the city than looking at it through hotel windows. People know Mumbai only for its Bollywood. This is the first time I got to know that the city has had such a multi-faceted culture of books and people,” said Antonio Bullon, Consul General of Spain.
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