Week 1536 - Touristy SoBo, The Gateway, The Taj and The Crowds

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Counting Down to 90 - Week 1579

Why 1579

Bhavin's WritingsBhavin Jankharia

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This weekend, we were staying at the Taj Palace, attending a conference and I could see the Gateway of India from my room, the square opposite the monument packed with people, with not an inch to spare and then spilling onto the promenade along the sea and opposite the Taj. 

The crowd thinned a bit after sunset, but people continued to hang around and later when the square emptied, the promenade was still busy, people standing and posing and enjoying the water and the rains.

I thought these crowds were a one-off because of 15^th August, but the next day, in the evening, it was the same story, perhaps 5% less. Even in the mornings on Saturday and Sunday, as soon as the sun arose, I could see the early-bird tourists milling around and taking pictures against the backdrop of the Gateway and the lapping waves of the Arabian Sea.

The older I get, the more I am wary of crowds, especially since it doesn’t take much to spark off a stampede. Some of the international faculty went into the crowd to admire the Gateway and all of them, men and women were groped…despite which they couldn’t stop talking about the monument and its imposing beauty.

The Taj Palace is older than the Gateway of India and I saw some photos from that time with people sitting on chairs and tables on the promenade as if in a French Riviera cafe. Both the monuments are iconic and clearly still draw a large number of tourists.

I remember when you could just walk up to the Gateway and touch its pillars at any time of the day or night with no security around. It was and has been a silent part of our lives and was always easily accessible. 26/11 changed that completely and one of the reasons the square seems so crowded is because of the access control.

The Taj also is a busy place, very cosmopolitan and we could hear Indian, Arabic and European languages, though the predominant international tourist crowd spoke Arabic. The corridor connecting the Towers to the Palace was perennially crowded…people often enter the Taj just to use the washrooms…I remember as 16 year olds, running into the Taj if we were in that area, to see and use the toilets, if nothing else to admire how amazing they looked to us at that age. I remember being turned away once and then learnt that all you had to do to enter was have the right swagger and to look like you belonged.

We went to Ziya to the Oberoi for dinner with cousins on Saturday night. While getting into and out of the Taj always take time, the Oberoi was very quiet. I would have expected large tourist crowds at Nariman Point, given that it was a holiday weekend, but perhaps the rains kept the tourists and the locals away. 

The two hotels couldn’t be more different. The Oberoi has always been a quiet, discrete hotel and it shows. Those who like hustle and bustle however would do better staying at the Taj.

The Southern part of SoBo is still a happening place for tourists. All the lanes near Regal and along the Colaba Causeway were brimming with people and buzzing and the shops were crowded, including a small pharmacy I had to go into for a short while. 

It felt nice to see that the area is still a happening place. But I worry about how crowded it gets and what could potentially go wrong, especially in the Gateway square when packed with so many people. Or maybe it is just me…the kind of person who during a Bryan Adams concert stays at the back of crowd with enough space around, just next to the exit, so that I don’t get trapped in case things were to go wrong.