Just had a ‘street food’ sandwich (I miss Irish sandwiches though). Hope I survive! Eating here is a wee bit stressful, you always have to watch what you’re eating, at least I do anyway. No raw vegetables (which I just broke with that sandwich), and no water that’s not bottled or filtered. Probably drinking better water than I do at home! Makes you realise that we are so lucky to be able to drink the water from our taps. In china they have a separate tap for drinking water. Seems strange to think of a sink with two taps!
Right now I’m just chilling at work, learning Autocad and playing around on photoshop, oh and working too. Can’t spend too long on the internet as they get charged by the download. In India 2mb speeds are a luxury and are offset by paid for downloads. Most have 512mb speeds with unlimited download. But it’s like dial-up sometimes. It…..is….so…..frickin…..slow…..
You know what, I’m gonna take this lull in anything happening to write about Bombay’s history. It’s quite interesting. Bombay, or Mumbai (we’ll discuss that later) was started in the mid 17th century when in 1661 the Portuguese, who had a little fort to protect their shipping interests in this region handed over the island to the British as a wedding present. Imagine the receiving of the present.
“Here you go. Thanks, what is it? Oh it’s just and Island off the coast of India. Oh, I had mentioned a diamond tiara hadn’t I? Yeah but you have hundreds of those, this is a whole Island! In India… Big trading area you know? Is there a city attached? No. village? No. Just a small fort surrounded by huge Indian empires. Sounds great…next.”
But in all fairness it was a good deal, as the history of India shows. The city was leased to the British East India Company who quickly made this their seat of power in the region by 1686. Soon Bombay began to grow and grow. The company, fearing an attack, built a huge fort around the city, which now lends itself to the name of Bombay’s city centre: Fort. I work in Fort, the office I work in would have been write against the Fort walls in yonder years. In this time we also see the start of Bombay’s reclamations projects. The map below shows Bombay as it originally was, a series of small islands joined by mangrove marshlands and paddy fields.
It’s interesting to note that lots of the placenames in Bombay; Mahim, Worli & Bandra were originally small fishing villages in the middle of nowhere which as Bombay grew became the area names. Even more interesting still is that these villages still exist, As you drive from Dadar to Mahim you pass one and the Bay is there is full of little fishing boats (as well as garbage and pollution from the city!).
By 1858 Queen Vic had proclaimed herself Queen of India and the company was now not just a merchant group but an arm of the Empire, conquering land and forging and Empire for Britain with Bombay as it’s capital. By 1900 Bombay was one of the biggest and most prosperous cities in the world and was the centre of ocean-going trade between Asia and Europe. Part 2 in the Next blog….what will happen? Will Sharon finally get with Brad? Will Gandhi finally find inner peace and Indian independence? Find out next on thesmilingtree.blogspot.com…
Bellow is a picture of Bombay in 1909 - compare that to a picure of bombay in 2008 bellow it!
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