From Bollywood dreams and colonial landmarks to forgotten games and ancient caves, Mumbai brings its past and present together at full speed
MUMBAI does not exactly introduce itself. It arrives.It arrives with traffic, people, buildings, history, cinema, sea, ambition and enough energy to make you wonder whether the entire city has been drinking very strong chai since sunrise.
After Delhi, I thought I had developed some immunity to India. Mumbai looked at me and said, very politely: “Aiyo, you thought so, ah?”
My Mumbai adventure took me through the BMC, Film City, the Gateway of India, the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya and most memorably, and most dangerously to my knees, Elephanta Caves.
Knees vs Antiquity
Because apparently, if you want to admire one of India’s great archaeological treasures, first you must prove your devotion by climbing enough stairs to make your mid-50s body question every life choice that brought you there.
Elephanta nearly finished me – not the caves, the stairs.
There I was, climbing upwards with the determination of an archaeological enthusiast and the cardiovascular dignity of someone whose knees had begun filing formal complaints.
Every few steps, my body was saying: “Madam, perhaps we have seen enough history for today.”
But then you reach the caves. And suddenly, the complaining stops.
Because what you are looking at is extraordinary.
The rock-cut Elephanta Caves were constructed around the mid-5th to 6th centuries AD, and the main Cave 1 contains enormous reliefs associated with Lord Shiva.
Unesco describes the site as one of the great achievements of rock architecture in western India.
And standing there, looking at those figures carved directly into rock, I found myself thinking about the hands that made them.
There was no computer, no laser cutter, no 3D printer and no fancy machinery.
Just human beings, stone, tools, patience and an extraordinary understanding of form.
The seven-metre Sadashiva, dominating the entrance to Cave 1, is particularly humbling.
You stand there looking at it and think: How on earth did human beings do this?
Then you remember you have just spent the last 20 minutes negotiating with a staircase. Perspective, lah.
The original Makcik discipline
And then Mumbai offered me another kind of lesson in history at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya.
I went into the museum expecting ancient treasures.
I came out thinking about snakes. More specifically, Snakes and Ladders.
Because there, among the art and sculpture, I encountered the Jain tradition of Gyanbazi – literally the “game of knowledge”.
And suddenly, the childhood game took on a completely different meaning.
What many of us know as a cheerful little game involving dice, plastic counters and children screaming because somebody landed on a snake, turns out to have much deeper roots in Indian religious and philosophical traditions.
In Jain versions, the board could function as a moral map. Ladders represented virtues and spiritual progress. Snakes represented the consequences of undesirable behaviour.
The journey upwards was not simply about getting lucky with a dice.
It was about knowledge, conduct and the consequences of one’s actions.
In other words, Snakes and Ladders was giving moral education before Malaysian aunties perfected the art.
You don’t need to lecture the child. Just let the snake swallow their token. Lesson delivered. Makcik approves.
And that little discovery was one of those travel moments I love most.
You think you know something. Then, you travel and discover you only knew the modern, sanitised, plastic-counter version.
Behind it is a much older cultural story.
Even the museum itself felt like part of Mumbai’s historical layering. And outside stood that enormous Buddha head, quietly watching over the grounds. There was something wonderfully fitting about seeing it there.
Mumbai has this extraordinary ability to place centuries of history within the same visual frame, from ancient religious art, colonial-era architecture, modern museums, Bollywood, municipal government, the Arabian Sea to people everywhere.
When local government goes glamorous
Then came the BMC. Now, normally, when someone says “municipal headquarters”, the average person does not immediately reach for the camera.
Mumbai apparently did not get that memo.
The BMC Headquarters is a grand heritage structure, and the civic body itself promotes a guided heritage tour of the building, which means Mumbai has somehow managed to make local government look glamorous.
Malaysia, please take notes
Imagine saying: “Come, I show you our municipal headquarters.”
And instead of expecting a counter, a queue number and somebody saying: “System down, datang esok,” you get a heritage experience.
Makcik nearly fainted. Again.
Manufacturing dreams before lunch
Then there was Film City. And that was when Mumbai revealed another side of itself. Because Mumbai is not merely a city that remembers its past. It is a city that manufactures dreams.
Cinema is woven into Mumbai’s identity in a way that is difficult to explain unless you have actually felt the scale of it.
Here, storytelling is not merely something you watch. It is an industry, a livelihood, a cultural language, a fantasy factory and perhaps that explains something about Mumbai itself.
The city seems to understand that people do not come here merely to survive. They come to make something of themselves – a career, a film, a business, a life, a name and a dream.
Sometimes, perhaps, all six before lunch.
The gateway to everything
And then there was the Gateway of India. Standing there by the waterfront, looking at that enormous arch against the Arabian Sea, you cannot help thinking about how much history has passed through this city.
The Gateway was completed in 1924 after its foundation stone was laid in 1911 in connection with the visit of King George V and Queen Mary.
But history has a funny habit. A structure created during the British Raj can eventually become part of a completely different story.
Today, people gather there, tourists photograph it, boats move across the water and Mumbai continues doing what Mumbai does best: moving.
And perhaps that is what struck me most about Mumbai. The city does not seem particularly interested in choosing between its different identities.
It keeps them all – ancient and modern, sacred and commercial, stone sculpture and movie sets, municipal government and Bollywood, heritage buildings and glass towers, and the Arabian Sea beside one of the world’s great urban centres.
Everything seems to exist beside everything else. And somehow, it works. Or at least it works sufficiently for Mumbai to keep moving at a speed that makes the rest of us wonder whether we have accidentally pressed the fast-forward button.
As for me, I left Elephanta with aching legs, a slightly wounded sense of athletic confidence and a much deeper appreciation for what human hands can accomplish. Those sculptors carved mountains. I climbed some stairs. Let us not compare achievements. I know who won.
But that is perhaps the beauty of travelling. You arrive thinking you are going to see places. Instead, sometimes, the places rearrange something inside you.
Mumbai did that for me. It made me laugh. It made me sweat. It made me stare. It made me think. It reminded me that a museum can turn a childhood game into a lesson in philosophy, that a municipal headquarters can become a heritage attraction, that cinema can become an entire city’s dream factory, and that people centuries ago could look at a piece of stone and see something magnificent waiting to be released from it.
And, on one particular staircase at Elephanta, it made me briefly reconsider every life decision that had brought me to that exact moment.
But would I climb those stairs again? Maybe.
Give me five minutes first. And a chair. Preferably one with armrests.