Now, on to Victoria Terminus, the train station that is Mumbai’s main jumping off point for the rest of the continent, and the main goal of my wanderings today. VT has been renamed Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, but people still call it VT. One of my books quoted the journalist James Cameron as describing its style as “Victorian-Gothic-Saracenic-Italianate-Oriental-St Pancras-Baroque.” Another book says that it is a cross between “St Peter’s in Rome and the Taj Mahal in Agra” with some wedding cake thrown in. Yet another book says that it is an “extravagant Victorian-Gothic fantasy (which) falls somewhere between Notre Dame and the Taj Mahal, with a hint of fairy-castle thrown in for good measure.” It is the biggest British built building in India. It is a wonderful monstrosity. There are gargoyles and turrets and colorful brickwork and lattices and ornate carvings and stairways to nowhere. Stone lions guard it, and pillars buttress elaborate stone archways, and lacy opulence drips throughout. This is not a building that is on speaking terms with subtlety. Its facade is superb. Inside, it fades into a regular train station, which is a little disorienting, because you kind of expect to see crazy little gnomes running around on mysterious errands and fantastic animals sitting down for a feast. I don’t think that I would want to eat a wedding cake that looked like this, but it is a fun structure. Guidebook: 2 for 5.
4 comments:
Wow! What an interesting building. It looks like the only architectural style missing is the "international school". There is most definitely an interesting story behind this one.
p.
There is some interesting history on the VT in what appears to be some kind of "interweb encyclopedia".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chhatrapati_Shivaji_Terminus
off topic...was the word "bombay" just what englishmen heard when the locals said "mumbai" with the hindi inflection? Any linguists in the crowd?
Evelyn, we're expecting you to come home having adopted the mumbai regional english accent...for your voice over career.
p.
There are a few theories about the word "Bombay" - some think it was a corruption of the portuguese "bom bahia", meaning "good bay". Wiki gives more info, and disagrees with this derivation:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mumbai
Turning the nasal "m" into a stop at the same place of articulation ("b") is possible, giving something like "bumbai".
yeah, i have heard bom bay was from the portuguese for good bay. and mumbai is from mumba devi, a local deity, who was probably originally an indigenous earth goddess. i will be hitting the mb shrine in a thursday or two.
i think is was the shiv sena, a hindu power group, who got into power a few years ago that started changing all the names of stuff. people don't always pay strict attention, like i dont think i have offended anyone by saying bombay instead of mumbai. and people still call victoria terminus vt, not by the new name.
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