Mumbai is the fast paced commercial, financial, industrial and celluloid capital of India. Lured by its glamour and the prospects of 'streets paved with gold', a large number of people from different parts of the country come to settle in this city every year. And Mumbai continues to grow, to absorb and most importantly to prosper. Just when you begin to wonder how you're ever going to cope with Mumbai, you arrive at Worli and see Haji Ali Mosque standing proudly on a raised walkway in the middle of the sea giving you the feeling that the Gods are there if everything else fails. If you arrive at night, there will be a backdrop of twinkling lights from the skyscrapers that are so much a feature of Mumbai's skyline. The scenes change as you drive past Chowpatty Beach, ablaze with the lights of stalls selling fruit-juice, ice-cream and snacks to the crowds thronging the beach. By the time you reach Marine Drive, your spirits will be restored and the rush of traffic won't seem half so daunting as it might have been earlier, and the sedate horse-drawn landau will seem a charming anachronism.
Once a tiny island overrun by swaying palm trees, Mumbai used to belong to the native Koli fisher-folk, who still live here in their little villages surrounded by soaring skyscrapers. Portuguese came here in the seventeenth century and dotted the place with several forts, which stand even today. Later Mumbai came under the British rule and eventually became one of the largest ports in the British Empire.
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