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Colaba: The Diamond at the Tip of Mumbai
Colaba, the southernmost tip of Mumbai, is the city’s most iconic neighbourhood. This bustling locality—with the Gateway of India, the world-famous Taj Mahal Hotel, and the Colaba Causeway, a shopper’s paradise—is an unparalleled tourist attraction. But barely 200 years ago, it was a rocky, jackal-infested island, separated from the rest of Bombay by a temperamental creek.
In this compelling biography of the neighbourhood, Shabnam Minwalla, journalist, author and long-time resident of the area, tells the tale of the unexpected forces that reshaped land and sea; and allowed this remote corner of the city to evolve into one of its liveliest, quirkiest areas. As she sets to find out the area limits, she unravels accounts of colonial rivalries and dowry negotiations; and of shrewd industrialists who transformed this doomed island into the centre of trade during the cotton boom of the 1860s. She navigates through the sometimes charming, sometimes seedy streets to track its evolution from a spiritual and recuperative retreat for British soldiers to a coveted residential area for the Brits and Indians alike. She digs into her childhood memories to tell us of the eccentric Parsis of Cusrow Baug, the warm yet persistent shopkeepers and hawkers of Colaba Causeway and the industrious Sindhis who introduced Mumbai to co-operative housing societies. Her corner of Colaba is populated with musicians, theatre artists and writers, as well as the Arabs who come every year to witness the city’s monsoons. She mourns as she records how the neighbourhood rose like a phoenix from the ashes after the vicious 26/11 terrorist attack.
Shabnam Minwalla draws from three generations of family memory and combines it with her flair for storytelling and journalistic groundwork to paint an intimate and dynamic of portrait of Colaba.
In this compelling biography of the neighbourhood, Shabnam Minwalla, journalist, author and long-time resident of the area, tells the tale of the unexpected forces that reshaped land and sea; and allowed this remote corner of the city to evolve into one of its liveliest, quirkiest areas. As she sets to find out the area limits, she unravels accounts of colonial rivalries and dowry negotiations; and of shrewd industrialists who transformed this doomed island into the centre of trade during the cotton boom of the 1860s. She navigates through the sometimes charming, sometimes seedy streets to track its evolution from a spiritual and recuperative retreat for British soldiers to a coveted residential area for the Brits and Indians alike. She digs into her childhood memories to tell us of the eccentric Parsis of Cusrow Baug, the warm yet persistent shopkeepers and hawkers of Colaba Causeway and the industrious Sindhis who introduced Mumbai to co-operative housing societies. Her corner of Colaba is populated with musicians, theatre artists and writers, as well as the Arabs who come every year to witness the city’s monsoons. She mourns as she records how the neighbourhood rose like a phoenix from the ashes after the vicious 26/11 terrorist attack.
Shabnam Minwalla draws from three generations of family memory and combines it with her flair for storytelling and journalistic groundwork to paint an intimate and dynamic of portrait of Colaba.
178 pages, Hardcover
Published November 20, 2020
About the author
Shabnam Minwalla
26 books35 followersShabnam Minwalla writes books for children.
These include:
`The Six Spellmakers of Dorabji Street'
`The Strange Haunting of Model High School'
`The Shy Supergirl'
`Lucky Girl'
`What Maya Saw'
`Nimmi's Spectabulous Schooldays'
and
`When Jiya Met Urmila'
Her short stories are included in numerous anthologies. She is also a journalist and columnist with a number of Indian newspapers and magazines. She is a former Senior Assistant Editor with the Times of India in Mumbai.
Shabnam did her Masters in Journalism at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.
She did her Bachelors in Economics, Statistics and Mathematics at St Xavier's College in Mumbai.
These include:
`The Six Spellmakers of Dorabji Street'
`The Strange Haunting of Model High School'
`The Shy Supergirl'
`Lucky Girl'
`What Maya Saw'
`Nimmi's Spectabulous Schooldays'
and
`When Jiya Met Urmila'
Her short stories are included in numerous anthologies. She is also a journalist and columnist with a number of Indian newspapers and magazines. She is a former Senior Assistant Editor with the Times of India in Mumbai.
Shabnam did her Masters in Journalism at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.
She did her Bachelors in Economics, Statistics and Mathematics at St Xavier's College in Mumbai.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
February 6, 2021
This book is one of the five books(two each set in Delhi and Mumbai and one in Kathmandu) by Speaking Tiger publications on neighborhoods of cities. I am one of those who like to read about history of a city. Hence, this book came into my to-read list. I am not a 'Mumbaiker' or 'Colabite',but I was literally in Colaba when I was reading the book ;going to Old Woman's Island or trading in Cotton Green. But the only problem I felt was that the author hastened to finish the book after 1960's.(This was probably due to the author living in USA then!!!!).
However, if this error is ignored,this is one book, which one can read and understand how once a village of Koli fishermen transitioned into being Colaba.
However, if this error is ignored,this is one book, which one can read and understand how once a village of Koli fishermen transitioned into being Colaba.
January 5, 2021
A thoroughly enjoyable read that transports one to the bylanes of a Colaba familiar to all but known by only a few. Shabnam manages to weave stories around some of the lesser known landmarks of Mumbai with a personal touch of her own legacy growing up in this hamlet.
September 26, 2026
From the perspective of an english sailor, the way the British received the Bombay Islands from Portuguese must have been it's own bleak horror comedy.
They set sail towards that island, only to be stopped at the shores by the Portuguese, since the other boat with Abraham Shipman and Lord Marlborough--the leaders of this expedition--has gotten lost. They wait until the other boat arrives, and when it does, the Portuguese try to block the transfer. So they have to wait out the stalemate somewhere in Karnataka, where, one by one, the sailors start dying. By the time the stalemate has been resolved, only 140 of the 400 men are alive, and Shipman himself is dead.
And the islands? Swampy, marshy, full of mangroves and palm trees, flooding during high tide. Nothing grows here. Travelling from one island to another requires a boat or a ferry. The British don't want to keep sending men to that death pit, and so they pawn it off to the East India Company for a paltry sum of 10 pounds per annum.
It is also interesting to think of how closely the fortunes of Bombay are tied to the advent of the American Civil War. Without it, the British would have continued getting their cotton from the Americans, and Bombay may have remained a marshland during low tide, an archipelago during high tide.
Also interesting: how much the city has been shaped by the British. How it's literally been built on the model of London, how the British turned this from the seven islands into something that could be travelled across with a vehicle.
This is an okay book. It skims through the history of Bombay and Colaba and doesn't have the granular, exhaustingly detailed quality of the previous book--City of Gold. I also stand corrected. I said the previous book glossed over a certain part of Bombay's history that needed more attention. Turns out there wasn't any trade history to be gone over. Bombay's fortunes changed with the arrival of cotton, before that it was not an important centre for trade.
Also, this book cleared up ONE thing that the previous one DID gloss over. Once the Civil War ended and Britishers resumed exporting cotton from America, there was a huge economic crash in Bombay and many cotton traders lost their business. Gillian Tindall simply said Bombay recovered from it and continued to become a powerful commercial and manufacturing center.
She didn't go into the details of how they managed to recover, why that happened.
This book does.
It happened because the Suez Canal opened around that time, the distance between Britain and Bombay was reduced by 3/4th's, and a lot of trade came their way. Interesting stuff.
They set sail towards that island, only to be stopped at the shores by the Portuguese, since the other boat with Abraham Shipman and Lord Marlborough--the leaders of this expedition--has gotten lost. They wait until the other boat arrives, and when it does, the Portuguese try to block the transfer. So they have to wait out the stalemate somewhere in Karnataka, where, one by one, the sailors start dying. By the time the stalemate has been resolved, only 140 of the 400 men are alive, and Shipman himself is dead.
And the islands? Swampy, marshy, full of mangroves and palm trees, flooding during high tide. Nothing grows here. Travelling from one island to another requires a boat or a ferry. The British don't want to keep sending men to that death pit, and so they pawn it off to the East India Company for a paltry sum of 10 pounds per annum.
It is also interesting to think of how closely the fortunes of Bombay are tied to the advent of the American Civil War. Without it, the British would have continued getting their cotton from the Americans, and Bombay may have remained a marshland during low tide, an archipelago during high tide.
Also interesting: how much the city has been shaped by the British. How it's literally been built on the model of London, how the British turned this from the seven islands into something that could be travelled across with a vehicle.
This is an okay book. It skims through the history of Bombay and Colaba and doesn't have the granular, exhaustingly detailed quality of the previous book--City of Gold. I also stand corrected. I said the previous book glossed over a certain part of Bombay's history that needed more attention. Turns out there wasn't any trade history to be gone over. Bombay's fortunes changed with the arrival of cotton, before that it was not an important centre for trade.
Also, this book cleared up ONE thing that the previous one DID gloss over. Once the Civil War ended and Britishers resumed exporting cotton from America, there was a huge economic crash in Bombay and many cotton traders lost their business. Gillian Tindall simply said Bombay recovered from it and continued to become a powerful commercial and manufacturing center.
She didn't go into the details of how they managed to recover, why that happened.
This book does.
It happened because the Suez Canal opened around that time, the distance between Britain and Bombay was reduced by 3/4th's, and a lot of trade came their way. Interesting stuff.
November 20, 2022
You can't read Colaba and not feel it. As Shabnam takes you through her mohalla, the movie changes from black-and-white to sepia then technicolor to Full HD. You somewhere get the sense, that in letting go of the past, you miss the looong sigh that a simpler time was. You swap it instead for quick decisions, quicker commutes and a nostalgia that is 'no more what it used to be'. The place itself, remains where it always has been, mute but responding, changing yet supporting, a few generations and then some. It could easily be the story of my hometown, or the next person's. The vein that runs through this narrative is a template that could be true as much for the author as it is for you.
The bibliography at the end is evidence for the research that's gone into this work. All that literature search because they know that this tale is meant to captivate. And it did, i must visit Colaba, again, and look at it with Minwalla-tinted glasses.
The bibliography at the end is evidence for the research that's gone into this work. All that literature search because they know that this tale is meant to captivate. And it did, i must visit Colaba, again, and look at it with Minwalla-tinted glasses.
May 11, 2021
A virtual walking history of Colaba
The book is an accessible modern history of Colaba. The author weaves stories of her life spent in the neighbourhood with its glorious history - events, residents, architecture, infrastructure and its development into the posh community that it is today.
The book is an accessible modern history of Colaba. The author weaves stories of her life spent in the neighbourhood with its glorious history - events, residents, architecture, infrastructure and its development into the posh community that it is today.
April 19, 2024
I think this has been the best of Speaking Tiger's urban history series that I've read so far! I feel more in love with this little tip of Bombay knowing its cosmopolitan creation and all the change it's witnessed.
The crowning jewel is the style and penmanship. Shabnam is hilarious and an incredibly evocative writer, bringing 400 years of Colaba to full breathing life. I especially loved the liberal use of quotes from residents and excerpts from novels alike. HIGHLY recommend this to anyone at all interested in South Bombay history.
The crowning jewel is the style and penmanship. Shabnam is hilarious and an incredibly evocative writer, bringing 400 years of Colaba to full breathing life. I especially loved the liberal use of quotes from residents and excerpts from novels alike. HIGHLY recommend this to anyone at all interested in South Bombay history.
February 28, 2022
A beautiful little book about the best part of Bombay/Mumbai, covering Geography, history and an anecdote about Led Zep. I was fortunate enough to spend 5 years of my life in this place, and travelled on foot and food (sic), and yet this book made me discover aspects about Colaba which were witty, refreshing and nostalgic. A must-read and a companion piece for Naresh Farnandes' Bombay books.
January 6, 2025
Personal memories, anecdotes interspersed with historical data. Good read.
October 23, 2025
As a former colabakar, this book took me back home.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews