Mumbai

This megalopolitan monster - India's largest city - was originally an island archipelago, inhabited by fishermen and Buddhist monks. The islands were acquired by the Portuguese who gave them to Charles II as a dowry for marrying Catherine de Braganza. In 1668, the Crown offered the lease to the British East India Company for a mere $10 per annum.



They rapidly established their west coast headquarters here, carried out massive land reclamation and building projects, and transformed seven muddy islands into the colonial city of Bombay, the most important port on the Arabian Sea. Since then the city (which changed its name to Mumbai in 1995) has never stopped growing.

Traditionally, the first thing a visitor to Mumbai is shown is the Gateway of India, an Indo-Saracenic monument on the waterfront. The last British troops left India via this gateway in 1948 in a symbolic gesture of renunciation of this great city that had been the trading hub of their Empire.




Overlooking it is another of the city's most famous icons, the magnificent Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, built in 1903 by the "father of India industry", Jamsetji Tata, after he had been refused entry to a hotel because he was a native.

Mumbai is the commercial and entertainment centre of India, generating 5% of India's GDP and accounting for 25% of industrial output, 40% of maritime trade, and 70% of capital transactions to India's economy. Mumbai is one of the world's top ten centres of commerce by global financial flow, home to such important financial institutions as the Reserve Bank of India, the Bombay Stock Exchange, the National Stock Exchange of India and the corporate headquarters of many Indian companies and numerous multinational corporations.

The city also houses India's Hindi film and television industry, known as Bollywood. Mumbai's business opportunities, as well as its high standard of living, attract migrants from all over India and, in turn, make the city a potpourri of many communities and cultures.

Mumbai is the most westernised, cosmopolitan and frenetic city in India. Day and night, its streets teem with people of all complexions, cultures and creeds. It is a city of contradictions and extremes, where phenomenal wealth rubs shoulders with heart wrenching poverty. Migrants come from all over Asia, lured by dreams of Bollywood-the largest film industry in the world - and the promise of material success.

People continue to flock to this "city of gold", because whatever else about Mumbai, one thing is certain - it is a city of chance, where both dreams and nightmares are spun into reality.