From the archive record
The name of the city, Mumbai is derived from patron deity the Mother Goddess Mumba Devi, worshipped by the earliest inhabitants the Kolis. Situated on the West coast of India is surrounded on three sides by water, the open Arabian Sea to the West and South and Thane creek to the East. High rising buildings, downsized slums on a large scale, an industry of dreams and vast horizon of only water, still the state of Maharashtra faces water shortage in many of its districts. Mumbai, formerly Bombay, is big. It’s full of dreamers and hard-labourers, starlets and gangsters, stray dogs and exotic birds, artists and servants, fisherfolk and crorepatis (millionaires), and lots and lots of people. It has India’s most prolific film industry, some of Asia’s biggest slums (as well as the world’s most ex