In Pics: A Bombay-Mumbai Contrast –The City That Was

Bombay of sprawling avenues and horse-carts vs the Mumbai of the kaali-peelis and afternoon siestas by the sea.

The current BMC building juxtaposed with a time when walking was still the norm in Bombay. (Photo Courtesy: Yuvraj Khanna)

Living in Mumbai sneaks up to you. The chaos and the continuous forward-moving motion of the entire city prevents you from noticing the little things, about the streets, the buildings and its people. The next thing you know, a 100 years have passed and the city looks entirely different with mind-boggling traffic, a different populace and bits of Bombay morphing into Mumbai, while other bits become history.

In a fascinating photo project curated by The Quint, lawyer, musician and photographer Yuvraj Khanna juxtaposes the Bombay of sprawling avenues and horse-carts with the Mumbai of the kaali-peelis and afternoon siestas by the sea.

I have a penchant for history and all things old, so I’ve always been curious how cities change over the centuries. While we do see a lot of ‘before and after’ photos, there was nobody of work that in a single frame captured how the city has altered with time and therefrom, stemmed the idea of this project

Yuvraj Khanna 

The Photo Project

The parade at the Gateway of India on the occasion of the departure of British troops from India in 1948. (Photo Courtesy: Yuvraj Khanna)

A protest under British rule in front of the Town Hall then, now The Asiatic Society Museum. (Photo Courtesy: Yuvraj Khanna)

The grandeur of the Victoria Terminus has remained unchanged through time. (Photo Courtesy: Yuvraj Khanna)

The Gateway of India during pre-Independence, where once you could spot some classic beauties parked literally right next to it. (Photo Courtesy: Yuvraj Khanna)

The area now is cordoned off to cars and is strictly a pedestrian zone with the addition of barricades around the gateway.

The current BMC building juxtaposed with a time when walking was still the norm in Bombay. (Photo Courtesy: Yuvraj Khanna)

This postcard issued pre-Independence shows the building in the 1950s without the statute of Pherozeshah Mehta and sans the tasteless ventilation shafts that have been installed by the authorities right infront of the heritage structure.

Long before the Khans and the Kapoors, it was the heroines from the Jewish community that scorched the movie screens. (Photo Courtesy: Yuvraj Khanna)

This photo is an advertisement showing one such lady namely Rose Ezra, a famous actress from the 1930s, endorsing a Packard car in front of the Gateway.

The lone electric tram crossing the Mumbai Municipal Corporation in the early 1900s. (Photo Courtesy: Yuvraj Khanna)

Though the tram service eventually came to a halt in 1964, the authorities in Mumbai are – luckily (for us) – exploring the idea of bringing these fabled creatures of the city back on the road.

Bullock carts, caravans and even horse-run tram cars constituted traffic in Mumbai in the 1800s. (Photo Courtesy: Yuvraj Khanna)

Yuvraj says the concept of horse-run tram cars was entirely unique to him where two horses would together pull a small open air tram-like structure pulling scores of people at a time!

This photo shows the old statute of King Edward VI as it stood in the early 1900s that originally gave Kala Ghoda its name. (Photo Courtesy: Yuvraj Khanna)

The name lingered on much after the removal of the old statute in the 60s, luckily the black horse is now back in Mumbai and is set to preside over the famous Kala Ghoda Arts Festival next months.

Imagine the Gateway in the 1950s being quaint enough for an afternoon siesta. (Photo Courtesy: Yuvraj Khanna)

A snake charmer in front of the Gateway in the early 1900s. While pigeons have taken over the tract of land in the picture, the stereotype arguably still hasn’t completely disappeared. (Photo Courtesy: Yuvraj Khanna)

A lady in black, dead-centre of the frame in front of the then Victoria Terminus in the 1880s . (Photo Courtesy: Yuvraj Khanna)

Right from 1910 to 2017, it’s still a common sight to see people pose in front of CST for pictures, though caravans and bullock carts are seen less often now. (Photo Courtesy: Yuvraj Khanna)

Photography saves an image frozen in time and for that reason, an old photo will always give you a glimpse of the past. What I personally really like is how through a camera is how you can visually tell stories and capture not only what a place looks like, but also provide an insight to the lives of people. Archiving […] goes completely in tandem with photography, for if they weren’t any archives, if it wasn’t for the process of actually developing photos into hard copies, there would be no visual depiction to the history of photography. 

Yuvraj Khanna 

Yuvraj is a litigation lawyer during the week and a budding musician during the weekends. He self-taught himself photography starting at the age of 16, and slowly moved to film cameras and so forth.

(You can see more photographs by him on his Instagram.)

Also See: In Photos: A ‘New’ Delhi Takes a Trip Down its Nostalgic Bygones