Talaash! Which part of Mumbai do you want to see?

Lokmanya Tilak Terminus (LTT)




Where to start
when you land in Mumbai
with only a shirt on your back.


"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she

With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

- Emma Lazarus - 1883


The dirty platforms of Lokamanya Tilak Terminus or Kurla. That's where a majority of hundreds of thousands of people, mostly youngsters, from the caste and poverty ridden parts of the country first set foot on the island of Brihan Mumbai. The promise is that you will never go hungry in Mumbai and the possibilities, endless. The truth is that you will most probably end up living in the dirtiest slums on this planet but the sweet smell of freedom this city offers will make up for the centuries old status-quo on the suffocating mainland.




Gateway of Mumbai.

A "Missing" poster with a picture of a young girl from New Delhi and an instant job offer greets the new Mumbaikar at the railway station. For a new arrival without education, the following job would look the most appetizing, a job in a hotel (restaurant).





For some, there's one more option. To them, the Island is a springboard to jobs across the Arabian Sea in the oil-rich middle-east. And a majority of them make Mumbai their home while they make the crossing.




Unlike getting off at the majestic Chatrapati Shivaji Terminus, the Kurla Terminus is a very dreary place to start off. But the smell from the open drains close by, is probably a better welcome message.


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