Mumbai. The last time I was in the city was two years ago. I couldn’t do one thing I wanted to, back then. The trip was, much like the city, busy. Too tight. So two weeks ago, while leaving for the city, I made up my mind to visit the place I couldn’t the last time, visit and not just see – Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, or Victoria Terminus as I prefer to call it.
Let me explain the much overlooked difference. You visit a place to be there, observe it, listen to it, talk to it mentally, spend time with it. But seeing a place, which most people do, is just going there, looking at its amazing features and spending time at that place. Seeing is superficial, shallow. Visiting is visceral, deep.
So we set out to do a small part of Mumbai Darshan by train. The journey from Navi Mumbai to VT was unlike any other I’ve experienced so far. We took a train towards Panvel first, in the opposite direction; that’s the starting point for the line and hence we’d get good seats. During the short duration from Khandeshwar to Panvel, I got introduced to the train journeys of Mumbai. I stood near the door holding one handle, air gushing at my face. After a few seconds there was another train zooming along the track in front of me. From the windows I could see the track-side life and mountains beyond in flashes; and hear the characteristic rattling sound from below. It was a treat for someone like me.
The one-and-a-half-hour journey began from Panvel. The train was as unyielding as ever, past Mansarovar, past the Taloje River, past the Vashi-Mankhurd sea link. I saw a very young Hong Kong in those few minutes while nearing Mankhurd, with still waters and gliding birds and tall buildings in the distance.
Around an hour later, after crossing twenty three stations in total, the train came to a halt under an asbestos sheet. Walking towards an exit, above which a huge analog clock was hanging (with bold and black Roman numbers and thick hands, it just looked so classic), past the “Entrance Hall” of VT, I stepped into the sunlight and turned my head to see the backside of the railway station. And what a sight it was. All those carvings, engravings, bricks, coloured glass windows (which reminded me of blue pottery, I don’t know why), scratches, discoloured patches and cable wires on top – they just took my breath away. Standing there beneath the majestic structure I lost track of time and hurried towards the front. On the way boys were playing catch amidst red and white double-decker buses halted at the VT bus stop.
I stood right in front of the iron gate, beside which “Central Railway” was engraved in granite, right at the middle with a tiger on my right and a lion on my left, and craned my neck up. Only to lose my breath again. The domes. The corridors. The windows. The shape of those windows. The glass panels. The two coconut trees on either side. The Indian flag. And the woman with the torch on top. So much imagination portrayed so well. There was another classic clock up there. It showed twelve-thirty.
But I wasn’t satisfied yet. So we decided to cross over to the other side, along with a few others, gesturing the vehicles to slow down which they duly did. I reached a nice spot, but wasn’t quite happy there. So I experimented a little and moved a few feet back, stood above a heavy stone on the footpath, and finally got what I wanted. The sight of the Victoria Terminus standing in all its beauty. I fell in love with it immediately. The time-chasing traffic, the sunlight, the people walking around with a fast pace – the one-hundred-and-twenty-eight-year-old station didn’t seem to care that the clock ticks by. A gentle breeze hugged me that moment and I took a deep breath. And it was in that moment I named 24th November 2016 in my calendar as Victoria Terminus Day.
Behind me there were other Victorian buildings built of dark brown bricks and white ones around the windows. This area, called Fort, has plenty from the Victorian era, like the David Sassoon Library And Reading Room (founded in 1847) opposite Jehangir Art Gallery, The Sir Cowasjee Jehanghier Building For The Elphinstone College, the town hall of the State Central Library of the Asiatic Society of Mumbai (founded in 1804), and the Bombay Municipal Corporation to the right of VT. It has taken me a long while to realise my love for everything Victorian, and Bombay has played a major part in it.
I stood there for quite some time taking in the Victoria Terminus, inside which wooden windows, marble pillars and intricate carvings in brick, wood and stone are more than a century old. Would Queen Victoria have walked through those doors I walked through? Would she have stood and admired this railway station from where I stood? I’d like to think she did. And so would’ve every person who put their heart and soul into creating this glorious masterpiece.
Footprints on water 