SHANTARAM ~ Mumbai article
Mumbai - 25 Years after Shantaram's Days
Gregory David Roberts describes Mumbai with the intimacy of a lover in his bestseller, Shantaram. With the Johnny Depp film now on its way, it is interesting to consider how much of Lin-Baba's Bombay of the 1980s exists today. The metropolis has witnessed so much in the past twenty-five years, yet much has remained the same. The Shiv Sena, mentioned in the book, headed the state government in the nineties and officially changed the city's name from Bombay to the original Mumbai. Even in the past people called it Mumbai while speaking Marathi and Bambai when speaking Hindi. However the name Bombay still rolls off the tongues of most of its citizens.
Die-hard Bombayites, or Mumbaikars as it is politically correct to call them now, compare their city to New York. It's a city that never sleeps and throbs day and night with a similar energy. You either love it or hate it, and most people swing between these polar extremes when they live in or visit India's greatest metropolis. Nevertheless, it is impossible to be indifferent to Bombay. Perhaps the only truly cosmopolitan city in the sub-continent, Bombay continually absorbs an unending stream of new residents. Each finds their niche, be it on the streets or in a skyscraper. The heat, grime, crowds, noise and the traffic are great equalizers, and everyone who comes to live here regards it as home in no time at all.
Reassuringly Leopold Cafe and India Guest House still stand where they did, pretty much unchanged. Leopold has new signage proudly proclaiming that it has been serving up its unique brand of surly service since 1871. The cafeteria on the inside is just the same, with wide open entrances, old posters on the walls and old-fashioned tables and chairs. The patrons are still mostly tourists from all over the world; it appears as if it is mandatory to eat or have a drink here - as it is to visit the Gateway of India. Several new eating places now dot Colaba Causeway including a very un-Shantaram MacDonald's. Theobroma and Churchill are extremely popular and Bombay's favorite fine dining place, Indigo and Oriental specialty restaurant, Busaba are in a lane just two minutes away. Reassuringly, Leo's is still packed at all hours of the day.
Colaba Causeway itself is definitely more upmarket than it used to be. Shops offering gaudy baubles and glittering clothes to the predominantly Arab clientele of the seventies and eighties are fewer. There are now exclusive stores of international brands instead; the effect of India's liberalization policy and new booming economy. The Colaba Police station, across the road from Leo's, still exists as a quaint old structure in the middle of high-end shopping. Its infamous block of lock-up cells does not look any different either. Shantaram fans would however find startling additions to the skyline if they stood outside Leo's and gazed across the Causeway. A cylindrical high-rise service apartment, built by the Taj Mahal Hotel, stands on the road leading to Cuffe Parade on the site of the dilapidated old stables, the Wellington Mews. Another old building, Buckley Court, on the same road, has a towering addition to its restored ground floor structure.
India Guest House still rents box-rooms at around $10 a night. Shantaram would find the character of Arthur Bunder Road very much the same, except for a smart deli, Basilico and a couple of mobile phone shops, unknown in the 1980s. The little road leading past India Guest House to a fishing village and then on to Colaba Market however has gone up-market since Shantaram's times. Seedy looking old warehouses have been converted into fashionable boutiques in an exclusive complex known as the Courtyard. Athena, next door, was one of the city's smartest nightclubs when it opened a few years ago and has now become an exclusive club, Prive.
Read Part 2 here