Where does "mumbai" come from, the Kolis, and other random facts and pictures

Mumbai is a bustling city made of many paradoxes. For the classic European traveler it may prompt many surprises...

Actually it is said that the European word Bombay (the previous name for Mumbai) comes from Portuguese sailors who cried "Bom Baia" (Beautiful bay !) upon their arrival. 
Originally, the city of Mumbai was made up of seven small islands- Bombay, Parel, Mazagaon, Mahim, Colaba, Worli and Little Colaba.

The seven islands were a part of the Magadha Empire ruled by Ashoka (the most famous Indian emperor) 3 centuries BC. However, after the fall of the Magadha Empire, deep-sea fishermen called the Kolis became the island’s chief inhabitants. These fisher folk worshiped Goddess Mumbadevi from whom the city derived the name “Mumbai”.

What is interesting about this is that the Kolis are actually still present in Mumbai and have their own little port in the middle of the bay area. 

What is even more interesting is the way the other Indian communities describe the Kolis.

Here is what I found on Indiaprofile.com a site dedicated to tourism in India. Insightful as well as entertaining ...

The Kolis-fisherfolk-of Mumbai are a distinct community. In Their dress, their language, their food and their lifestyle they are easily distinguishable. Especially the economically independent Koli women who are aggressive to the point of being quarrelsome.

Blocking the exit of the ladies compartment in the local train, dressed traditionally in their bright patterned sarees, noisily exchanging greetings, are the fisherwomen who squat on the floor of the train with their huge baskets of the fish. Working women hold their neatly pleated, flowing sarees well above their ankles as they gingerly tip-toe around them to avoid any close encounter with the fishy kind. If you hold your nose close to the offensive smell, the fisherwomen range in annoyance and God help you if you dare to object to the presence of her stinking fish in the commuters compartment. She’ll not merely threaten to douche you with fish water but I have been witness to a wrathful fisherwoman fling a fish rather accurately at a very well dressed young woman reducing her to tears!

Kolis, as the fisherfolk are known in Mumbai, are known to be easily excitable. Even an ordinary conversation between them often leads to a noisy quarrel in which abuses are easily exchanged. An exaggeration it may be but the statement is not inaccurate, that ‘a Koli sentence never begins without a vulgar epithet.’ Rather pleased with her aggressive image is the kolin and in the regional Marathi language kolin has become a synonym for an ‘abusive quarrelsome woman’. 

 OK. 

So you can guess that India is a country were casts, differences and "races" are quite significant.

As a living proof of this let me tell you another interesting fact: 

any Caucasian looking women walking in the street of Mumbai will be the target of Indian men pinches (and I am not talking about slight discreet pinches, what I am referring to is hard-core crab-like intentional pinch). 

A friend of mine who has been living in Mumbai for over a year now, gave me her secret weapon for retaliation: 

Bangles. 

It sounds stupid I know, but she actually wears broad metal bangles on her forearms (I'm sure she would wear spiky ones if you could find some on the market) in order to give those nasty pinchy fellows a good hit on the fingers. As she shrewdly told me: it does prevent them from doing it, but does give me a personal sense of gratification... and an excuse for buying jewelery ! 

Selling wine in India

Some of you might know this already, but I have left France to go to Mumbai for the summer.

This explains the lack of posts lately.

I am working for a French company selling Indian grown wine in the West region of India (Maharashtra, Gujarat and Goa mainly) for 3 months.

What’s interesting about this mission is that wine in India is only nascent. So I’ll be at the vanguard of any further development for wine in a country whose population should outgrow China’s by 2030.

To tell you the truth, wine is only at its premises here: although Indian wineries have emerged as soon as in the 1980’s (Château Indage) and developed in the mid 90’s (Sula), the local population is still very far from having the reflex of drinking wine when they go out for dinner.

For most Indians, there are no such things as varietals and wine is only red or white. Women are still very reticent to drinking any alcoholic beverage whatsoever.

And men … well they prefer whiskey.

So you can imagine that the quality of Indian wines has long been the least of Indian producers’ worries…

Thus, education and tasting opportunities during weddings or banquets will probably be the only means to carve in Indians’ minds that wine is not a drink whose sole purpose is to be mixed with orange juice (true story) in order to make cocktails.

The higher classes are starting to get more and more interested in wines, although they are focusing on international brands for now. The trouble with imported wines though is that they are submitted to very heavy levies. For instance a bottle of Moet champagne which revolves around 28 euros in France would be 118 euros here.

Ouch.

India has been part of the WTO sine 2007 but when you see that imported spirits are taxed at more than 250% you understand why Europe and the US are regularly in dispute with India.  

I’ll try posting when I can, although my days are pretty packed.

I’d like to let you know about my experience here, with a main focus on wines of course but I will also certainly just talk about living in Mumbai and getting accustomed to the Indian life style.

Next post will be about my first Indian wedding…

Have you seen Bollywood movies? It was just like being in the middle of one…