asialife HCMC 1 - AsiaLIFE Magazine

sun-worshippers, vendors and,
of course, multi-star hotels.
Perhaps the most significant of
these is the Taj Mahal Palace
and Tower, in an area known as
Colaba. Situated right across the
road from the famous Gateway
of India, built to commemorate
a British royal’s arrival in the
country, the hotel was created
by an industrialist-entrepreneur
who vowed to make it better
than anything any foreigner
had ever conceived. Today,
the Taj, as it is fondly known,
is a landmark the world over,
and often the location for that
special celebrity visit, special
wedding, that special anniversary,
any special celebration.
The Mumbai resident has a soft
spot for its beauty, its elegance
and its cachet, and many of us
felt personally violated when
terrorists attacked in November
2008, defiling its corridors with
bullets and blood. The Oberoi
and Trident, too, were similarly
assaulted at the time, even as
so many of us watched, horrified,
in person, on television, in
print. But recovery was quick,
though not easy, and Mumbai
showed off its spirit once again.
We are now back to normal,
though rather more wary than
before, and raring to go, to
show off to the world what
the city that never sleeps is all
about.
For many, Mumbai is synonymous
with Bollywood, the
world where dreams can, and
often do, come true. The Hindi
film industry, with its epicentre
in the western suburbs of the
city, is home to famous faces
like Shahrukh Khan, Aishwarya
Rai, Amitabh Bachchan, Aamir
Khan and others. Film City,
located in the jungle-clad hills,
is where stories are created and
captured for gawking audiences
all over the world. The television
world has its own share of
star power, and has its focus not
too far away, in Andheri, Malad
and Goregaon, beaming a new
culture into homes everywhere.
Mumbai is as famous for its
street food as it is for its stars—
in business, in films, on television
or in style. What Anthony
Bourdain called the “Bombay
burger” is the ubiquitous vadapau,
a heavy, rounded, spicy
potato cake stuffed into soft
bread and munched in alternation
with a tear-inducingly
hot fried green chilli. Almost
every street will have its share
of stalls serving up steaming
plates of fragrant and astonishingly
germ-free food, from the
soya-and-chilli sauce drenched
Chinese noodles to the soft
white rice cakes, or idlis, eaten
with sharp coconut chutney, to
the crunchy-tangy texturallyrich
bhelpuri. There will be
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