Mumbai, Bollywood and the gateway to India

A beautiful group of seven merged islands off India’s west coast, Mumbai (the former Bombay) is India’s commercial and entertainment capital. Home to the country’s famous Bollywood Hindi film and television industry and a major financial center, Mumbai attracts migrants from all over the Indian subcontinent and one of the major driving forces behind the Indian economy.

Having originally received its name from the Portuguese term meaning “good bay”, the Portuguese built several forts and churches in the area and formed the basis for the mega city’s assimilation of the seven islands into a single unified municipal area. Portugal ceded the islands to England in 1661 and the British Crown then leased them to the British East India Company in 1668. The city’s deep harbor was ideal for the company’s first port in the subcontinent and brought a rapid increase in revenue and steady population growth to the area. This famous business venture proved to be so profitable that the company eventually transferred its headquarters here in 1687, thus marking the establishment of Bombay as being India’s principal trading center.

After repeated periods of growth and industrialization, the city continued this steady growth into the 20th century and after a long struggle for independence, British withdrew from subcontinent after 282 years of rule on 15 August, 1947. This independence achieved, Jawaharlal Nehru and the Congress party came to power in Bombay and the Bombay State, as well. In the late 1970s Bombay witnessed another construction boom and yet another massive wave of migrants and the city changed its name to Mumbai in 1995, a word derived from the patron goddess Mumbadevi.

And although this modern mega city is certainly not without its problems, for many Indians this name change has come to represent the culmination of a long process that has transformed their image Bombay’s colonial past to one of Mumbai’s independence and modernity, prosperity, and cultural diversity. A teeming city with countless tourist attractions, Mumbai remains the bustling Indian metropolis that has to be seen to be believed.

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