Lalbaug & Parel

Parel was a village with a Portuguese church. The British took the church building, turned it into Government House, and the Governor of Bombay lived there until 1885; the building later became the Haffkine Institute, which it still is. That is the oldest layer.

The layer that matters is cotton. From the 1860s the mills went up through Parel, Lalbaug, Chinchpokli and Worli, and the belt became Girangaon — the mill village. At its height there were more than a hundred and thirty mills and several lakh workers, housed in the chawls that still stand, and the whole of Marathi working Bombay lived inside about ten square kilometres. The Great Bombay Textile Strike of 1982, led by Datta Samant, brought out around two and a half lakh workers; it lasted over a year, and the industry never recovered.

What stayed is the neighbourhood. Lalbaugcha Raja was founded in 1934 by fishermen from the closed Peru Chawl market, and during Ganeshotsav this is where the whole city comes — around 1.5 million people a day. Ganesh Galli is a few hundred metres away and six years older. The mills are offices and malls now; the mandals are exactly where they were.

Name	Where	What it is known for
Haffkine Institute 1899	Acharya Donde Marg, Parel	In the old Government House, where the Governor of Bombay lived until 1885. A plague and vaccine research institute since.
The Girangaon chawls 1860s onward	Lalbaug, Parel, Chinchpokli	The mill workers’ housing; one room per family, shared taps, and the social world that produced Marathi Bombay.
Chinchpoklicha Chintamani 1920	Chinchpokli	One of the oldest mandals in the city; its arrival procession is an event in its own right.
Chinchpokli workshops	Chinchpokli	Where many of the large central-Mumbai mandal idols are made.
Bharatmata Cinema 1940s	Lalbaug	A single screen that shows Marathi films; one of the last of its kind.

Name	Where	What it is known for
Tata Memorial Hospital 1941	Dr E Borges Road, Parel	Commissioned by the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust in February 1941. India’s principal cancer centre; patients come from every state and from neighbouring countries, and the pavements around it are full of families who have travelled for weeks.
KEM Hospital & Seth GS Medical College 1926	Acharya Donde Marg, Parel	About 2,250 beds, funded mainly by the municipal corporation, and effectively free. One of the busiest public hospitals in India.
Wadia hospitals	Acharya Donde Marg, Parel	The children’s and maternity hospitals, on the same stretch as KEM and Haffkine.
Girangaon mill land	Lalbaug, Parel, Chinchpokli	Of the 130-odd mills, a handful of chimneys survive. The land went to towers, offices and malls; the workers who struck in 1982 did not get it.
Chinchpokli idol workshops	Chinchpokli	Where many of the large central-Mumbai mandal idols are built, from July onwards. Open to look at if you ask.

Name	Where	What it is known for
Lalbaugcha Raja 1934	Putlabai Chawl, Dr Ambedkar Road, Lalbaug	Navsacha Ganpati, the one who fulfils vows. Founded by fishermen and traders from the closed Peru Chawl market.
Ganesh Galli Mumbaicha Raja 1928	Ganesh Galli, Lalbaug	Older than Lalbaugcha Raja and a few hundred metres away; builds a full temple replica each year.
Tejukaya Mandal 1934	Lalbaug	A Lalbaug mandal of the same generation, known for elaborate pandals.
Parel cha Raja 1930s	Parel	Mill-belt mandal.
Nare Park Mandal 1930s	Parel	One of the older Parel mandals.
Kambli Arts 1935	Lalbaug	The family that has sculpted Lalbaugcha Raja for three generations.
Peru Chawl market until 1932	Lalbaug	The fish market whose closure set off the vow that founded the mandal.
The Lalbaug cluster	Lalbaug	Lalbaugcha Raja, Ganesh Galli and Tejukaya within a few hundred metres; walk it rather than treating them separately.

Name	Where	What it is known for
Ladu Samrat	Lalbaug	Misal and Maharashtrian snacks near the Lalbaugcha Raja pandal.
Lalbaug khau galli	Lalbaug	Busiest in the Ganpati season, when the queues become impossible.
Gomantak rooms	Dadar, Parel, Lalbaug	Gomantak fish thalis serving the mill-belt population.
Lalbaug food stalls	Lalbaug market lanes	Eleven days of vada pav, misal, juice and sweets through the pandal district during Ganeshotsav.
Chinchpokli and Parel kitchens	Chinchpokli, Parel	Plain Maharashtrian eating houses serving the chawls.

Worth knowing

• During Ganeshotsav the roads here close and the only sensible access is Chinchpokli or Currey Road station.
• Weekday nights, after one in the morning, is when the Lalbaug queues are shortest.
• Lalbaugcha Raja, Ganesh Galli and Tejukaya are one walk, not three trips.
• The aagman processions, days before the festival, give you the spectacle with no queue at all.
• Outside the festival this is a quiet working neighbourhood, and the chawls are people’s homes.
• The mill compounds that became Lower Parel are the next locality north.

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