Mumbai: Splashes of Color

(Continued from Mumbai: Rich Man, Poor Man)

Featured Photo: “Still Life – Rose Saris, Brown Building”  Mumbai, India—2011

We continued on our journey until our driver parked along the roadway near the top of Mumbai’s Malabar Hill. We’d reached the first stop of our afternoon sight-seeing. Trees provided some much-needed shade as my host and I got out of the van. He told me we were at the Phirozeshah Mehta Garden, named for the local lawyer and Indian politician—indeed, one of the founding members of the Indian National Congress—who was born in 1845. Much revered in Mumbai, Mehta is known as the ‘Uncrowned King of Bombay’, with reference to the city’s name under the British Raj in India.

The gardens which bear Mehta’s name, however, are better known as the ‘Hanging Gardens’. Originally laid out in the 1880’s, the park was built on concrete slabs covering the city’s main water reservoir; in other words, the gardens ‘hang over’ the water. Given such a lofty nickname, I climbed the steps with high expectations. Rather than grandeur, I was instead greeted by a modest but pleasant, terraced park with a red clay walkway, green grass, and manicured flower beds.

There were not many other visitors in the park that day; I probably saw as many blackbirds as people…

…which provided a better opportunity to capture the lovely garden in photos.

I turned my iPhone lens toward a bouquet of vibrant, ruby-red blossoms near the end of the path.

We’d lingered in the garden just 10 minutes, then walked across the road to another area atop Malabar Hill: a public space named Kamala Nehru Park. My host told me the park was renowned for a spectacular view of Mumbai from on high, but what I first glimpsed was a gigantic cement boot with a few children standing on it.

Inspired by the nursery rhyme and built in 1952, the boot is supposed to represent the ‘old woman who lived in a shoe’; it has long been a regular place for school picnics. But just beyond the shoe was the promised vantage point.

A dozen or so people were gathered at the railing, and—as at the Hanging Gardens—I was again captivated by flashes of color in the sunlight: the flowing veils and saris in crimson and pink draped over the women to the left and right, a bright blue t-shirt between. I joined the crowd at the overlook and took in the grand view over Mumbai…

…the Arabian Sea mirroring the cloudless, blue sky; the beige-colored sands of Chowpatty Beach; blocks of buildings colored in gray, white, and tan—some low and squat, others tall and thin—and the graceful curve of Marine Drive, nicknamed the ‘Queen’s Necklace’ for the streetlights that line the road, appearing at night like an elegant string of pearls. Beyond this arc, at the far right, lay our next destination, near the southern-most point of Mumbai: the Gateway of India.

Returning to the van, we merged once again with traffic at the bottom of Malabar Hill, then passed more of Mumbai’s assorted buildings, some with tall shade trees in front…

…and some with short palms, allowing an unobstructed view of the graceful architecture.

I tried to capture in pictures the jumble of sometimes beautiful and sometimes unsettling structures on display. I was reminded again of the foreign-ness of this place.

Twenty minutes after I’d first beheld the ‘Queen’s Necklace’ from the park on Malabar Hill, our route opened onto Marine Drive, and I could see across the curve of the Arabian Sea to the southern tip of the Mumbai peninsula.

We pulled into a parking lot at Nariman Point—the farthest end of Marine Drive—and climbed out of the van to walk along the breakwater, looking back at where we’d been.

Back in the van, we passed a dull gray, municipal truck graced with one of the beautiful scripts of India…

…before getting caught in a crush of more vibrant black-and-yellow taxis, which are so common throughout Mumbai.

We continued past one reasonably well-maintained building…

…which was seemingly misnamed the ‘Moti Mansion’—its dubious moniker corroborated by the sign’s oddly-spaced lettering…

…and another less well-kept, inhospitable building: the ‘Janata Guest House’.

When we were stuck once more in traffic, I spied a cane wallah stand, where the proprietor offered a refreshing juice squeezed from the sugarcane stalks laid out atop his cart.

Farther along, yet again stopped in traffic, I looked above the roof of a city bus, my eye drawn to a splash of color from the laundry drying on the balcony of a smog-smudged apartment building.

Later, I caught sight of an even better still life composition with wet garments set against a dreary brown edifice—today’s Featured Photo—before I zoomed in for a closer view of the rose-tinted saris.

Finally, nearly two hours after we’d first crossed the Sea Link bridge over the Arabian Sea, our driver pulled to a stop, and we walked a short distance to reach Mumbai’s Gateway of India.

(To be continued…)