What are some of the best kept secrets of Mumbai? (Facts you may not know)

Ref - Discussion in Quora Digest.

1. Bombay has the largest national park in the world located within city limits.

Hardly anybody knows that the Sanjay Gandhi National Park is an unbroken forest tract that covers 104 sq km. Or the fact that within its core areas the park is home to not just the well known leopard, Langur and the Sambhar but also the Indian Flying-fox, Hyenas and four-horned antelopes. The least-known fact though is that the Park authorities are doing a damned good job given the resources they have and in the face of immense real estate greed in the city and the abject apathy and lack of interest of the citizens. The rich flora and fauna of Sanjay Gandhi National Park attracts more than 2 million visitors every year. It is the largest park within a city metropolis limit in the world. Tourists also enjoy visiting the 2400 years old Kanheri caves sculpted out of the rocky cliffs which lie within the park. It is in the centre of the park where an important Buddhist learning centre and pilgrimage site was sculpted by Buddhist monks between 9th and the 1st centuries BCE.

The ancient Kanheri Cave of Sanjay Gandhi National Park, Mumbai

2. Mumbai's Secret Underground Tunnel.

On a totally different note, recently, an underground secret tunnel had been discovered below Mumbai's General Post Office(GPO), which is said to be built by the Britishers as an underground escape passage route leading to the then Bombay Fort, fearing attacks from the Napolean. I don't think a lot of Mumbaikars know about this. In June 2010, a curious query by one of our newspaper’s reporters to a ward boy in St George’s Hospital, Fort, led to the discovery of this best-kept secret: a tunnel which begins underneath it and possibly has outlets at the Gateway of India and Churchgate.

3.What lies under Nariman point, one of the most expensive places in the world is actually debris.

Prior to 1940, the area was part of the Arabian sea. A popular leader of the Congress, Khurshid Nariman (affectionately called Veer Nariman), a Parsi Mumbai Municipal Corporation corporator, proposed to reclaim the area from the sea near Churchgate. To accomplish this task, debris from various parts of the city was dumped here and the shallow sea coast was filled. Reinforced concrete cement was used, of which the imported steel used was obtained from the black market at a higher price due to the World War II.The entire cost was estimated to be 3 lakhs or 300,000 (now 10 crores or 100,000,000) Additional reclamations were carried out in the 1970s. A construction boom in that decade saw this region spurting many commercial high-rises.

This is not Manhattan but Nariman Point, Mumbai the commercial hub city of India

4.The Taj Mahal Hotel, Mumbai

The architect of Taj Mahal hotel committed suicide. When WA Stevens, who designed the Taj Mahal Hotel at Apollo Bunder, finally saw the building he was so appalled that he committed suicide by jumping off the dome. Why? Because it was built back-to-the-front. According to his design, the side that faces the Arabian Sea was actually supposed to face Wellington Circle (now Regal Circle). 

OTHER SECRETS OF MUMBAI AS TOLD BY MUMBAICKERS

5.The artificially most inflated property business of Mumbai
Mumbai's best kept secret is without a doubt its residential property bubble since last several years.
Developers, investors, agents and all profiting from rise in prices have successfully been able to create the idea in the mind of people that housing prices in Mumbai can keep rising indefinitely no matter how high the prices are or how fast they have risen already or whether the prices have gone past affordability or not. So, it is a widespread belief that it is not possible to lose money when buying real estate in Mumbai. However, every market has highs and lows, ups and downs. This is indicated by the fall in real estate sales, rising inventories, the fact that half the flats are being bought by investors and also by low rental yields.

6. The Ulhasnagar Sindhis from Pakistan
After the Partition of India on 15 August 1947, over 100,000 Sindhi refugees from the newly created Pakistan were relocated in the military camps five kilometres from Kalyan in the Bombay metropolitan region. It was converted into a township in 1949, and named Ulhasnagar by the then Governor-General of India, C. Rajagopalachari.

7. The truth of Bombay and Vidarbha The state of Maharashtra wouldn't have existed with Mumbai as its capital had Nehru, Sardar Vallabhai Patel, the RSS, Moraoji Dessai (who later became PM and who was then the CM of Bombay state) had their say. Supported by the Gujrati & Marwari traders who controlled most of the business and workers from South India, the plan was to have a cosmopolitan state of Bombay and a Marathi speaking state of Vidarbha which would include parts of Hyderabad as well.

8. History of the creation of Maharashtra and Gujarat 

It was only due to the efforts of Sanyukta Maharashtra Samiti who strongly lobbied, criticized the ruling class and fought a war similar to independence that the state of Maharastra got created with Mumbai in it in 1960. Not just that, Gujrat was also carved out of the Gujrati speaking part of the state of Bombay.

9. Hutatma Chowk                                                                  

Before that happened, plenty of blood was shed. In January 1960, demonstrators were fired upon by the police at Flora Fountain in the capital city of Mumbai. Flora Fountain was subsequently renamed Hutatma Chowk or "Martyr's Crossroads" in their memory. 105 people died and it was comparable to the much spoken aboutJallianwallah Bagh Massacre by the Britishers in Punjab.

10. The Shiv Sena

1. The Shiv Sena and Bal Thackeray were a byproduct of this. The Sena replaced and represented Marathi rights after the Sanyukta Maharastra Samiti collapsed after creation of the unified Marathi state. Not just that, the Congress actually supported the Sena against a common enemy - the communist and workers unions from Bombay's erstwhile textile mills. Eventually the relationship went sour and the Shiv Sena defeated the Congress in the elections. The rest is known to all.

I posted on Facebook, and now I'm in jail? Demand freedom of expression in India

Amnesty International in India

I posted on Facebook, and now I'm in jail? Demand freedom of expression in India Amnesty International India and the Centre for Internet and Society have joined forces to ask India's Prime Minister and Minister for Communications and IT to uphold the right of the people to freedom of expression...both on and off the Internet. To Kapil Sibal Minister for Communications and Information Technology Government of India Sir, In recent months, the Government of India has targeted individuals numerous times for exercising their constitutional right to free speech and expression on the Internet. In the name of preserving peace or protecting religious sentiments, authorities have detained or arrested people for the peaceful expression of their opinions and beliefs . The arrests of 21-year old Shaheen Dhada and her friend Renu Srinivasan in Maharashtra - for Facebook comments questioning a recent Mumbai bandh - are just the latest example of a government crackdown on online speech and freedom of expression. In October, the Puducherry police arrested businessman Ravi Srinivasan for a Twitter post referring to allegations that the son of Union Finance Minister P. Chidambaram was corrupt. A month earlier, cartoonist Aseem Trivedi was arrested in Mumbai for publishing a series of cartoons parodying India’s national symbols.  In April, the Kolkata police arrested Professor Ambikesh Mahapatra for posting a cartoon critical of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. In all these cases, authorities relied partly on one law - Section 66A of the Information Technology Act, 2000 [amended in 2008].  This provision criminalizes online communication that is “grossly offensive or has menacing character”, as well as persistent sending of information, that is known by the sender to be false, to cause “annoyance, inconvenience, danger, obstruction, insult, injury, criminal intimidation, enmity, hatred or ill will”. Amnesty International India and the Centre for Internet and Society believe that Section 66A is not in line with the Constitution of India and internationally accepted standards on freedom of expression. The Constitution of India guarantees in Article 19(1)(a) the right to freedom of speech and expression. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognises the right to freedom of opinion and expression. A similar right to freedom of expression is guaranteed in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which India is a state party. In June this year, the UN Human Rights Council affirmed - in a resolution endorsed by India – that Governments must ensure that freedom of expression is also protected online.  The ICCPR does allow for certain restrictions on the right to freedom of expression. However these must be demonstrably necessary and proportional for specific public interests or the rights of others. Restrictions should be precisely defined to guard against over-broad or abusive application. Amnesty International India and the Centre for Internet and Society believe that Section 66A is imprecise and over-broad. Some restrictions dealing with information of menacing character or for purposes of criminal intimidation may reflect recognizably criminal offences. However other restrictions – including on sending information that is grossly offensive or causes annoyance and inconvenience, etc – are inconsistent with the international human rights law and standards on freedom of expression. The Internet should be a force for political freedom, not repression. People have the right to seek and receive information and to express their peaceful beliefs without fear, or interference. But under Section 66A, even a peaceful posting could lead to a prison sentence of up to three years. Two writ petitions have already been filed challenging the constitutionality of the section. In solidarity and support of these petitioners, Amnesty International and the Centre for Internet and Society call on the Government of India to: (a) Review Section 66A of the IT Act and bring it in line with international human rights law standards on freedom of expression; and (b) Lay down clear and comprehensive explanations of the restrictions on free speech either in the IT Act or in the IT Rules in order to prevent the abuse of the provision by various state law enforcement officials; the explanations should be framed after public consultation. We ask that you highlight these points during your meeting on 29 November convened to discuss the arrests of Shaheen Dhada and Renu Srinivasan.

The Nilgiri Mountain Railway

 The Nilgiri Mountain Railway                      The Nilgiri Mountain Railway is a 46 Km long and runs on 1000 mm gauge railway. It connects Mettupalayam to Ooty. The first section of the Nilgiri Railway up to Coonoor was completed in 1899 by the Nilgiri Railway Company and was extended to Ooty in 1903.                     This Nilgiri rail system is unique as it is the steepest one in Asia. In combination with this gradient there are many curves. To overcome this incline the Nilgiri Railway uses a unique `rack and pinion' rail system. In this system, between the two conventional rails, there are two rack bars, out of step with each other, on which the pinions of the locos and coaches 'climb' in a similar manner as a person climbing a ladder using his feet itleernately.                      It is interesting to note that the engine pushes the train from behind when ascending the hills and is in front while going downhill so that the train does not run amuck. The main incline between Mettupalayam to Coonoor is a continuous gradient where the rack system is used. After Coonoor until Ooty the gradient is relatively eased.                      Presently all traffic on the rack section is ably handled by the eight X class locomotives built by SLM of Switzerland. These locomotives have four cylinders instead of the conventional two. The main cylinders of the locomotive use high-pressure steam and drive the wheels of the loco while the smaller cylinders using low-pressure steam drive the rack system of the Nilgiri Railway system. Another interesting thing associated with the Nilgiri Railway is that the youngest X class loco is over 50 years old and the oldest is 80 years old!

 Main Features:                      The main feature of this line is the unique rack system and the equally unique and complicated locomotives. To quote from Sir Guilford L. Molesworth's report of 1886: "The locomotive used for working on the Abt System has two distinct functions: first, that of traction by adhesion as in an ordinary loco and second, that of traction by pinions acting upon the rack bars.                      The brakes are four in number-two hand brakes action by friction and two acting by preventing the free escape of air from cylinder and thus using compressed air in retarding the progress of the engine. The former are used for shunting whilst the latter for descending steep gradients. One of the hand brakes acts on the tyres of the wheels in the ordinary manner and the second acts on grooved surfaces of the pinion axle but can be used in those places where the rack is laid. Even after hundred years, the brake system on Nilgiri locomotives is as intricate and cumbersome as it was in 1886.                       The train journey from Chennai to Metupalaiyam then took just over 17 hours and cost Rs 20 first class and another 20 rupees to cover the remaining 33 miles up the steep mountain road to Coonoor and Ootacamund by the 'Nilgiri carrying Company's Mail and Express Tonga Service' while heavy baggage had to be sent bullock cart. The only titleernative was to hire a pony and arrange for luggage to be taken up by individual baggage carriers using the shorter but even steeper old road to Coonoor.

The Present Scenario                       Nowadays, the traveller from Ootacamund leaves Chennai central station on the evening Nilgiri Express at 9.00 p.m. and arrives at Mettupalaiyam at 7.10 am. After a 10 hour journey. There he merely crosses the platform to join the metre gauge train which leaves at 7.25 am. And reaches Udagamandalam at 11.40 a.m. in less than 15 hrs. The Nilgiri Railway (NMR) is a feat of engineering unique in the east.                     The line is a metre gauge, practically level for the first four and a half miles, to Kallar at the immediate foot of the hills. As soon as the train leaves Kallar, the rack rails appears and the long climb begins. In the next 12 miles to Coonoor, the line rises 4,363 feet curving almost continuously as it clings to the mountainside, crossing lofty viaducts or tunnels, the longest being 317 feet in length. The gradient posts read one in twelve and a half with monotonous consistency.                    Construction expenses were heavy because in addition to the tunnels, a big bridge over the river Bhawani at the foothills was necessary. Besides this large bridge, 26 other bridges smaller in size, were constructed and heavy expenditure incurred in rock-cutting and blasting.

For more details contact : Regional Director, IRCTC Ltd. South Zone 6A, The Rain Tree Place, #9, Mc Nichols Rd., Chetpet, Chennai-600031 Tel: 28363726 / 27 Fax: 28363453

MY LOT, ONLY MY LOT

MY LOT, ONLY MY LOT

 

 

I REMEMBER THAT DAY
THE BLACK FOREST WAS STILL, WITHOUT ANY
ROARING IN THE AIR.
ONLY THE SPARROWS WERE GRUDGING ABOUT THE STORM
THAT SHOOK THE FOREST THE PREVIOUS NIGHT
THEIR EGGS MIGHT HAVE ROLLED OUT AND BROKEN
THEIR DREAM NEST.FROM
I WALKED TOWARDS THE RIVER
AND PLUNGED INTO IT FROM THE ROCKY STEEP.
I DIVED DOWN TO THE BOTTON
TO BRING YOU OUT.
WHEN I GOT ...


by Benny Kottarathil