Mumbai or Bombay ? - When traveling to Mumbai, I routinely heard the word Bombay. Not knowing a bit of Marathi or Hindi, which were the two main languages that I was around, I decided to look into this word.
Here it is - Bombay was the name of Mumbai before it was Mumbai. Easy...well not really, there is a great deal of history that follows this. Bombay is made up of 7 islands, these islands were inhabited in the very early times, but they are not sure when exactly. Later in time the Mughal Empire took over Bombay, and then the Portuguese obtained the land through the Treaty of Bassein. The Portuguese helped in the growth of the Roman Catholic Churches, which later spread Catholicism through India. After a marriage between Charles the II of England and King John IV of Portugal, the territory was taken over by the British. The British held onto the 7 islands, and Bombay was turned into a large industrial area. During the British control, India slowly started to pursue independence, and during 1947 India was given its independence. Moving forward to 1960, the state of Bombay was broken into two states. The decision was based on the language spoken - Gujarati (Gujarat State) and Marathi (Maharashtra State, capital Bombay). The city was renamed Mumbai in 1996, and was renamed after the Koli (early inhabitants of the 7 islands, they were a fishing community) goddess Mumbadevi.
Here it is - Bombay was the name of Mumbai before it was Mumbai. Easy...well not really, there is a great deal of history that follows this. Bombay is made up of 7 islands, these islands were inhabited in the very early times, but they are not sure when exactly. Later in time the Mughal Empire took over Bombay, and then the Portuguese obtained the land through the Treaty of Bassein. The Portuguese helped in the growth of the Roman Catholic Churches, which later spread Catholicism through India. After a marriage between Charles the II of England and King John IV of Portugal, the territory was taken over by the British. The British held onto the 7 islands, and Bombay was turned into a large industrial area. During the British control, India slowly started to pursue independence, and during 1947 India was given its independence. Moving forward to 1960, the state of Bombay was broken into two states. The decision was based on the language spoken - Gujarati (Gujarat State) and Marathi (Maharashtra State, capital Bombay). The city was renamed Mumbai in 1996, and was renamed after the Koli (early inhabitants of the 7 islands, they were a fishing community) goddess Mumbadevi.
We arrived quite late in Mumbai, and we were scheduled to stay at Shashank's brothers house in the city of Mumbai. His brothers name was Yash, wife Jyoti, and son Jay. They also had a cocker spaniel named Sherry. After sleeping for 4 hours, we had to get up to be ready for the drive into Pune at 8am. Breakfast this morning was my first home cooked Indian meal. Poha was the name, and it was very tasty. It consisted of rice flakes, peanuts, coriander, and cumin. I made a promise to myself to try to account for all of the different foods that I will be eating...we'll see how that goes.