World City Guide

Culture

Culturally, Mumbai is probably best known for its film industry, nicknamed Bollywood. Cinema in India is very popular and the city is responsible for the majority of the Hindi-language films that are made in the country. The Mumbai International Film Festival takes place every other year (next due in 2006) and is firmly established as a major event in the cinematic calendar. It is staged at various venues across the city during the month of February. While cinema is popular (there is said to be in excess of 100 million paying cinemagoers a week nationwide) theatre, music and dance also have long traditions in Mumbai and remain important cultural activities. Mumbai is also home to a large number of public and commercial art galleries - the leading public ones being the Jehangir Gallery (see Key Attractions) and the National Gallery of Modern Art, both of which put on regular exhibitions of contemporary Indian art.

Time Out has recently come to Mumbai; its fortnightly listings and reviews provide comprehensive coverage of cultural events in the city. Available from newsstands.

Theatre, Dance and Music: The most important venue for the performing arts in Mumbai is the National Centre for Performing Arts, Nariman Point (tel: (022) 2283 3737; website: www.tata.com/ncpa). This complex of five theatres of varying sizes puts a widely varying programme of plays, musicals and dance. Normally, there will be something on that is well worth seeing. Important, too, is the Nehru Centre Auditorium, Dr Annie Besant Road, Worli (tel: (022) 2496 4676; website: www.nehrucentremumbai.com), where there is an auditorium, as part of a modern complex that includes art galleries, exhibition halls and a planetarium. During the year, it stages theatre, dance and music. It also runs workshops for educational purposes. For plays in English and programmes of Western music, Sophia Bhabha Hall, B Desai Road at Breach Candy (tel: (022) 2367 8550), is a good venue.

Film: The centre of Bollywood is Film City, at Goregoan (tel: (022) 2840 1755), where the majority of the film studios are located. It is possible to arrange visits to some of the studios. The bulk of films made in Bollywood are sugary love stories or action dramas; the aim of the industry is to produce the entertainment and escapism that its audiences demand. The industry is now gaining more international recognition, as the success of Monsoon Wedding (2001), Asoka (2001) and most recently Bride and Prejudice (2004) in Britain shows. Every year in January, the city hosts the Mumbai International Film Festival (see Special Events).

Mumbai has many cinemas, the best known one being the Art Deco Regal cinema, Apollo Pier Road, Colaba (tel: (022) 2202 1017), itself a Mumbai landmark. Many other cinemas, particularly those in the city centre, for example the New Empire Cinema (tel: (022) 207 1286) near CST, regularly show English-language films.

Literary Notes: Those who wish to immerse themselves in the spirit of Mumbai need look no further than Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children (1981). A dextrously handled cocktail of history, fiction and imaginative fantasy, the novel is partly set in Mumbai and provides a wonderful evocation of the city’s geography, atmosphere and history in the years following Independence in 1947. ‘What I can see: the city basking like a bloodsucker lizard in the summer heat. Our Bombay: it looks like a hand but really it’s a mouth, always open, always hungry, swallowing food and talent from everywhere else in India. A glamorous leech, producing nothing except films bush-shirts fish...’ It is an affectionate portrait celebrating the ‘highly-spiced nonconformity of Bombay’. A different view of the city emerges from Anita Desai’s novel, Baumgartner’s Bombay (1988), which conjures up the crumbling fabric of the city, its humidity and pollution.

Mumbai is home to a number of contemporary poets, including Arun Kolatkar. Nissin Ezkiel is often regarded as the founding father of modern poetry in the city. From the 1950s onwards, he did much to encourage young poets in their work. It remains as difficult here as anywhere else, however, to find companies who are prepared to publish poetry. In the field of fiction, Mumbai novelist Kiran Nagarkar has recently published Cuckold (1998).