Mumbai, Part 1: Kala Ghoda Arts Festival and Architecture Tour

Greetings from the Mumbai Airport. Matt and I just wrapped up four memorable days exploring India’s most populous and wealthiest city, and we experienced so much that I’m using two blog posts to recount the visit!

A bit of background on Mumbai for those who are less familiar: It is the capital of Maharashtra state, located in the middle of India’s western coast. Home to approximately 18.4 million people, Mumbai is still referred to by many Indians as Bombay, the city’s official name before it was re-named for political purposes in 1995. Mumbai is known as the financial and entertainment capital of India with its active port and famous Bollywood movie industry. Despite the city’s relative affluence, its slums are sprawling and dense—with 62% of Mumbai residents reportedly living in informal slums. We noticed incredible diversity in Mumbai, with a visibly influential Muslim population (20%) in addition to Hindus (66%), Buddhists (5%), Jains (4%), and Christians (3%). The city’s official language is Marathi, though English is predominately used for signage, business dealings, and touristic areas. As in Chennai, traffic can be paralyzing in Mumbai, and oftentimes Matt and I would hop out of our Uber a few blocks from our destination as we found walking quicker than waiting in a traffic jam. Apparently Mumbai’s transportation system is considered one of the most congested in the world, though on an optimistic note they are investing heavily in an underground metro line that will open in coming years.

Matt and I rented a simple private room in a Muslim family’s apartment located in the Crawford Market area of South Mumbai for four nights. As we had read in the AirBnB description, the Crawford Market district in a loud and busy urban hub with relentless honking cars, salesmen hawking their wares, and countless restaurants lining the streets.

In front of the entrance to our apartment near Crawford Market in Mumbai.

A quick-ish side note on eating out in India: Restaurants here are called “hotels” and clearly mark on their outdoor signs whether they are “Veg” or “Non-Veg” establishments. This demarcation is helpful and important given India’s religious diversity and residents’ various dietary requirements. As a vegetarian, I’ve been excited by the opportunity to order anything from a “Veg” restaurant menu rather than selecting from only a few options as I would in the US. It’s sort of interesting to think about how vegetarian food is the base-line for Indian cuisine and they consider meat, pork, or chicken as an additional element to a meal. It truly normalizes eating a plant-based diet and reinforces that meat is not necessary for good health! Millions of people in India eat this way, which is fantastic to see given the implications for sustainability. Matt is comfortable and happy to maintain a majority-vegetarian diet here, and we usually split a couple of dishes with flat chapati bread or naan during a meal. Another somewhat surprising aspect of almost all Indian restaurants is the universal inclusion of a Chinese food section within the wider menu. Everywhere we’ve traveled here so far, Chinese offerings have been a given on any Indian restaurant’s menu including chop suey, fried noodles, fried rice, and other staples. We haven’t noticed many Chinese tourists dining at these establishments, so locals must just love Chinese cuisine!

Back to the Mumbai experience - Matt and I reunited with an acquaintance from our William & Mary days, Anna, over dinner and theater in the Fort district of Mumbai. Anna has lived in India for a year and a half, first in Bangalore and subsequently Mumbai. We were eager hear her perceptions of the city and country as a whole, chatting as we feasted on a Palaak Paneer, rice, and other rich Indian dishes at the historic Café Mondegar.

Lucky for us, the hugely popular Kala Ghoda Arts Festival coincided with our visit to Mumbai. The annual event draws in massive crowds, featuring a chock-full, week-long agenda of events in cinema, theater, photography, painting, outdoor art, dance, music, and more. We were first exposed to the festival after dinner with Anna, when the three of us caught a strange and confusing two-man theater production called “Upside Downside” that was loosely inspired by Kafka’s Metamorphosis and other short stories of which we were not familiar. Though the play was advertised as an English-language performance, only about 75% of the script seemed to stick to that description. 25% of the play was in another language—we assume Marathi?—which meant we missed critical punchlines and backstory and left us completely amiss as to the meaning of the story. It felt strange and slightly disappointing to be the only ones missing the jokes, but weird stuff happens during foreign travel! After the play we enjoyed a multi-cultural dance performance at a large nearby park, also observing Mumbai’s well-established “hipster” culture at work as we were surrounded by hundreds of college-aged kids in ripped jeans, screen tees, and sneakers hanging out and joking around.

Dinner at the iconic Cafe Mondegar in Mumbai. 

Checking out the art installations at the Kala Ghoda Festival with Anna.

The next day we focused our energies on taking in Mumbai’s famous architectural landmarks which are most notable for their blend of Gothic Revival, Indo-Saracenic, and Art Deco styles from across varying centuries and global influences. Following a few suggested walking tour routes from our guidebook and online blogs, we began at the remarkable Gateway of India, of which I had seen pictures but was still surprised at its massive size. The structure was erected in the early 1900s to commemorate King George V and Queen Mary’s visit to India in 1911. We also passed by the elaborate Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, Regal Cinema, Majestic Hotel, St. Thomas Cathedral, Bombay University Clocktower, former Prince of Wales Museum, and Flora Fountain. One of our tour’s highlights was the enormous Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus Railway Station, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site built in 1887 with a beautiful Gothic Revival design.

The Gateway of India.

At the former Prince of Wales Museum, now called Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya.

The Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus Railway Station.

Aside from viewing these various structures, we took advantage of the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival offerings, passing through the heart of the festival where entire streets were blocked off for pedestrian traffic and were packed with craft vendors, outdoor art installations, food carts, and thousands of festival patrons. We especially enjoyed a photography and sculpture exhibit focused on the life and legacy of Mahatma Gandhi at the Jehangir Art Gallery, showcasing dozens of prints from a donor’s private collection. The Kala Ghoda Festival was quite an impressive event! Busier and larger than any arts festival I’ve been to in the US, no doubt.

Hip Indian young people sitting on top of a wall mural at the Kala Ghoda Festival.

Mahatma Gandhi exhibit at the Jehangir Art Gallery in Mumbai.

Unexpectedly we also came upon a blocks-long cricket complex where kids and adults dressed in white uniforms were competing in India’s most popular sport. Vendors sold tea to many of the viewers and athletes who were waiting for their chance to play. It was comparable to one of the many soccer tournaments I participated in while growing up, though the majority of the cricket players were grown men. Matt and I took time to explore the quieter streets in the surrounding Fort area which house expensive clothing boutiques, art galleries, and coffee shops. These streets appeared on the surface as just narrow, winding alleyways but we found them to be buzzing with hip young folks and wealthy older people alike who were in search of a shopping spree or a fancy meal.  

We agreed that Mumbai was shaping up to be our most interesting India stop so far, with endless food options, cultural offerings, and tourist sights to enjoy. I’ll detail the rest of our visit in my next post!