If one were to close one’s eyes and imagine Bombay— now Mumbai — what would one see? A teeming, hurtling metropolis inhabited by a people obsessed with the present. But a complete picture of the city must include elements of its past that are tucked into nooks and alleys. By identifying the links that bind the city’s past and present, BOMBAY: THEN AND MUMBAI: NOW (Roli, Rs 2,975), succeeds in giving this enchanting, but strangely elusive, city a sense of wholeness. Historian Jim Masselos and journalist Naresh Fernandes have written the text of this informative and richly illustrated book, while Pramod Kapoor and Chirodeep Chaudhuri are its picture researchers.

Masselos’s account harks back to the critical epochs in Bombay’s chequered past. The “insignificant cluster of islets”— a wedding gift to Charles II from the Portuguese — was passed on to the East India Company in 1668. The sun shone on the Empire and on Bombay, and by the early 19th century, it had been transformed into a flourishing commercial and cosmopolitan hub. Hectic industrial activity, deft urban planning and the emergence of a heterogeneous culture helped Bombay stake its claim as the Urbs Prima in Indis (the first city of India). Till Independence, and well after it, Bombay retained its primacy as a commercial, cultural and political entity in the national imagination. The well-researched photographs compiled by Kapoor, which include rare images such as those of the interiors of a Parsi fire temple and a pristine and sparsely inhabited Malabar Hill, among others, complement Masselos’s lucid text.

Fernandes’s narrative explores modern Mumbai’s dream-like fabric through the eyes of its myriad inhabitants. Be it the native Koli fishermen, the early Goan migrants or those who came later from the south and north of India, each community has had to rely on innovation to survive and succeed. In the process, bonds have been forged, turning the city into a veritable melting pot. However, these ties are now under threat from terrorism, communalism and the widening chasm between the affluent and the impoverished. The gap that exists between Fernandes’s polished text and the pedestrian images brought together by Chaudhuri is noticeable.

Top is a panoramic view of the port city in the 1880s. Far right is a dramatic image by Margaret Bourke-White depicting clerks at work in the Bombay Cotton Exchange. In the middle are two photographs: one, taken in the 1930s, shows a Ganesh idol modelled on Subhas Chandra Bose, while the other portrays men singing bhajans amidst the crush of bodies in a local train, symbolizing the spirit of the city itself. Bottom offers a snippet from Bollywood: a veteran producer scrutinizes a newcomer keen to touch the stars.