GlobalAtlanta’s publisher, Phil Bolton, fulfilled during the first week of July 2017 a long-term ambition to visit India on a trip to explore the ties binding Atlanta to the cities of New Delhi, Bengaluru and Mumbai, on his first visit to that country. His year-end recollections of the trip follow in a three-part series.
When Queen Mary and King George V of England landed in Bombay in 1911 they stepped onto the landing where they were greeted by a cardboard cutout of the Gateway of India arch that eventually would become a symbol of the British presence in India if not the British Empire itself.
By the time that the last British troops departed after Indian independence 37 years later, the cardboard cutout had been transformed into an 85-foot high archway made of yellow basalt with Muslim architectural traits, Indian materials and Gothic and Neo-classical elements.
The imposing structure remains one of Mumbai’s major tourist attractions and a gathering spot for locals, street vendors and photographers.
The city of more than 20 million inhabitants was officially changed from Bombay to Mumbai, the name of a Hindu goddess, once a Hindu nationalist party won elections in 1995 in the state of Maharashtra where it is located and serves as the capital.
If Delhi is compared to Washington because of the presence of the Indian government’s leading offices there, and Bengaluru is India’s Silicon Valley then Mumbai must be considered India’s New York.
Atlanta has had many visitors from Mumbai who have participated in trade delegations or academic exchanges. Delta Air Lines even maintained a nonstop flight until 2009, which it cancelled much to the chagrin of frequent travelers.
One of the most notable delegations from Mumbai visiting Atlanta took place in October 2008 when Indu Shahani arrived leading a delegation of senior academicians who visited with officials of Atlanta’s leading academic institutions.
In addition to being the principal of H.R. College of Commerce and Economics, a business school affiliated with the University of Mumbai, Dr. Shahani also held the apolitical titular position of sheriff, a ranking just below that of the city’s mayor.
While sheriff from 2008-09, she mobilized local non-governmental organizations to combat domestic violence and harassment and launched a Help Line to provide its victims with assistance and counseling.
More recently, Dr. Shahani founded and became the dean of the Indian School of Management & Entrepreneurship (ISME), where she has been at the head of India’s drive to deliver experiential education.
Under the initiative of Sonjui L. Kumar, chair of the Georgia Indo-American Chamber of Commerce, a dozen businessmen and women came to Atlanta in 2015 to meet with then-Mayor Kasim Reed and officials from the Georgia Department of Economic Development, the ATDC Incubator and Enterprise Institute at the Georgia Institute of Technology, the Metro Atlanta Chamber and the new consul general for India in Atlanta, Nagesh Singh.
According to Ani Agnihotri, my traveling companion along with Vir Nanda from Atlanta who arranged our interviews and introduced me to the three cities that we visited, Mumbai can offer the Metro Atlanta region a host of business opportunities in the pharmaceutical, media, entertainment and auto industries.
Professor S. Raghava Chari, a journalist and teacher at one of Mumbai’s prestigious universities, told me that he likes to take his students on what he calls “heritage walks,” which explore the city’s diverse cultures and neighborhoods.
Mumbai’s population has doubled since 1991 attracting people from throughout the country though natives of Maharashtra state still comprise 46 percent of the population, while 19 percent are from families originally from the state of Gujarat with the remainder coming from other states and abroad to find work and prosperity.
“The city has accepted many cultures and adapted them,” Professor Chari said,”with their variety clearly visible through the different architectural styles characterizing different neighborhoods.”
“Life here is accommodating,” he added, contrasting the separation of neighborhoods in New York with the intermingling of economic circumstances and architectural styles among the various neighborhoods.
As an example, he cited the residence of Mukesh Ambani, who is considered the richest man in India and runs and chairs the oil and gas giant Reliance Industries, and lives in what may be the most expensive private residence in the world, known as the Antilia, named after a mythical island in the Atlantic Ocean.
The 60-story skyscraper reportedly employs a staff of 600 and cost between $1 billion and $2 billion. It’s roof is graced with helicopter pads and its basement has a garage for 160 cars.
Driving on our way to Colaba, Mumbai’s tourist district where the Gateway of India is located, we passed the Antilia which is surrounded by what appears to be a normal neighborhood with a mix of shops and residences.
Professor Chari later pointed out that in this area “a lot of poverty and prosperity are found together.” The cotton mills, which made Mumbai known as the “Manchester of the East” and eventually fell into disrepair, apparently are located not far from Antilia.
Once we arrived at the Colaba we joined groups of tourists and Indians including families enjoying its causeway. We walked along Marine Drive that borders the area’s Back Bay and splurged on photo opportunities.
We later strolled about the Gateway which stands between the water and the historic Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, which is the flagship of the Taj Hotels Resorts and Palaces and has 560 rooms and 44 suites. its Tower looks over the activities of the many visitors to the Gateway as well as the Prince of Wales Museum, the National Gallery of Art and the beach along the Back Bay.
It’s hard to imagine the terrorist attack which took place there and other Mumbai locations in November 2008 over four days during which hostages were taken and more than 160 people killed. Ten members of a Pakistani terrorist organization was identified as the perpetrators who managed to slip through the Gateway after wending their way through Coast Guard vessels in place to guard against such an atrocity.
The presence of so many Indian children whom we saw running about and clearly enjoying themselves in the spacious area between the Gateway and the hotel says something about the resilience of the city’s inhabitants in keeping, if on a more minor scale, with the enjoyment that Centennial Park provides Atlantans despite the explosion and loss of life that occurred there during the 1996 Summer Olympics.
Our own enjoyment of the moment had to be captured by a professional photographer who developed his film for us while kneeling on the spot.
Despite all the individuals and places to which I was exposed, I think that the highlight of the trip for me was our visit to the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya, formerly known as the Prince of Wales Museum of Western India.
Please don’t ask me to pronounce its current name, but should you be interested in an overview of the extraordinary history and mixtures of cultures that provide the foundation upon which India’s present is being built, I think it encourages further study.
Perhaps we could look forward to a collaboration, much like the introduction to France that the Louvre museum presented for Atlantans during the Louvre Atlanta exhibition from 2006-2009 or to central Africa that the Royal Museum of Central Africa did with the Africa Atlanta 2014 exhibition at the Carter Center.
Although not limited to donations from the Tata family, nevertheless the Tata collection which was bequeathed to the museum in 1922 and 1933 of textiles, arms, bronzes and paintings guaranteed the museum’s exemplary ranking as one of India’s finest.
There are artifacts dating back thousands of years ranging from statues of Hindu gods and goddesses to weapons of all sorts. I was really taken aback by the “tiger claws” that can be concealed in the palm of one’s hands and then used to disembowel a host standing in a receiving line.
In sharp contrast to the violence exposed in the armaments section, the reclining statue of Buddha that greets visitors outside as they approach the museum depicts a serene, reassuring Buddha while on the other side there is a sleeping Buddha with 1500 meditating Buddhas on the other side capturing the moment when his anger turned to wisdom.
A reflective mood is unavoidable as one passes throughout he different galleries, but I was startled and very pleased when I came across a portrait of Abraham Lincoln among the many fine works from the Tata collection, which signaled to me the prospect of an ongoing and positive relationship between the U.S. and India.
Before leaving Mumbai and retracing our steps home, we decided that we couldn’t leave empty handed. After all, we had been gone for a week before returning to our abandoned families.
So as a final farewell we went to the Phoenix Mills area, which resembles some of Atlanta’s top shopping areas with the exception that the stores were filled with marvelous Indian clothes with which I filled a suitcase and pridefully spread throughout my family as Christmas gifts to their delight.
Atlanta Ballet is the presenting sponsor of Global Atlanta's Culture Channel. Subscribe here for monthly Culture newsletters.