passage to india - mumbai

I am a proper Bombaite, sorry, Bombay, the name associated with a catch-phrase, so well-known in the world, "Bombay the beautiful," is no more accepted, name for this city.

Vasco da Gama, a Portuguese world traveler, like your Chrstopher Columbus, Italian whose travel over the uncharted oceans was underwritten by Queen Elizabeth Braganza, found a bay. wasco found it so peaceful and beautiful that he named it "Bom Bahia," Beautiful Bay in Portuguese.

A set of seven island, not joined then and not joined for a very long time, indeed, tillbritish traders who asked the then emperor of India, Akbar, to allow them the privilege of opening a trading center in what is known as Colaba island.

British traders prospered in Colaba as it was a prettiest island amongst all seven. This island was close enough but not joined with an area known as Girgaum, Bhleshvar, Dhobi Talao, chowpati beach, which extended all along upto a Colaba watch Tower and signal post for incoming ships from Europe, basically, England.

There was a ramshackle wooden structure where fire burned during noght, alerting late-coming ships in the harber, Bori Bunder, leterally, shipyard where sacks upon sacks of English goods were unloaded. Bori, in local language means a sack, naturally filled with incoming English and European fancy goods, such as manufactured articles like chairs, tables, guns, pistols, swords, dolls, scottish fabrics, piece-goods, silver cutlery, including spoons and forks, apparels of the then European avante-garde fashions, caps, top-hats, men's and women's gloves, jewelry, scarfs, underwears for men and women, socks, mittens, gowns, shoes, paper articles like bound, nay, leather-bound, embossed with gold lettering of literature, English, classical literature....

More later...

It was an heroic attempt on the part of British merchants banded together and collecting few Pounds and few pennies, formed a trading company, the famous company, a private enterprise, indeed, not organised to conquer India but toexchange English goods, sort of barter English goods with indian cotton, Indian gold, Indian saffron, Indian gems like pearls, diamond, Indian Indigo die, Indian spices like cardamom, rock-salt, saffron, dried bay leaves, gum arabic, cilantro leaves, coriander, red-hot chillies, powdered chlli, coco-nuts and dried coco-nuts, jaggery, aka "Gud, unrefined sugar, clover, ginger, Indian salpetre-mud and slurry from which English merchants, sorry, arms merchants, made gun-powder, as the slurry contained iron oxide, a raw material for gun-powder, and used it in their armed forces and/or freely exported back to the Indian princelings, many, many of them, perpetually fighting with their next-door neighboring princely kingdoms....

more later....