Richa Chadha’s latest episode of Musafiri turns away from the familiar Mumbai of rush hour and real estate to ask a more foundational question: how did a cluster of islands become India’s financial capital? The episode walks through South Mumbai’s old streets, but its real subject is the institutional layer beneath the city—trade, migration, and the civic choices made by early merchants and administrators.
A port begins with a royal marriage
The story opens in 1661, when the Bombay islands were transferred to the British Crown as part of the marriage settlement between Catherine of Braganza and King Charles II. That dynastic transaction, the episode argues, set the terms for Bombay’s later identity as a port city open to outside capital and migrant communities.
The programme gives particular weight to Gerald Aungier, the second Governor of Bombay, whose policies encouraged commerce and drew trading communities to the settlement. His tenure is presented less as a colonial aside than as the moment when early Bombay began to acquire the commercial muscle that would define it.
From a banyan tree to the stock exchange
The episode then follows Mumbai’s commercial lineage from merchants meeting under a banyan tree to the establishment of what became the Bombay Stock Exchange. This is not a straight-line story of progress; the programme notes that cotton and opium trades built many of the fortunes that later shaped the city’s institutions during the colonial period.
Among the figures it highlights are David Sassoon, Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy and Premchand Roychand. Their legacy, as the episode frames it, went beyond business: their wealth became schools, hospitals and public landmarks.
- 1661: Bombay islands pass to the British Crown through Catherine of Braganza’s marriage settlement with Charles II.
- Gerald Aungier: The second Governor encourages trade and attracts communities to the port city.
- Banyan tree to BSE: Merchant gatherings seed an exchange that becomes the Bombay Stock Exchange.
- Philanthropy: Sassoon, Jejeebhoy and Roychand channel fortunes into education, health and public spaces.
Why the question of wealth still matters
Chadha said the episode grew from a desire to look beyond Mumbai’s reputation for energy, ambition and opportunity. “Whenever we talk about Mumbai, we talk about its energy, its opportunities and the people who come here to build a life. But I think it is equally important to understand the history behind the city we know today,” she said.
She also pushed the story into a contemporary debate about wealth and obligation: “It makes you wonder whether wealth today carries the same sense of responsibility. A city is not built by money alone; it is built by the people who live in it, contribute to it and make it what it is.”
That is the episode’s real invitation for our readers. Mumbai in Hindi cinema is often rendered as a backdrop of struggle and arrival. Musafiri asks viewers to read the city as an archive—of trade routes, migration, philanthropy and public institutions—not merely as a skyline. For anyone who follows the films, the episode adds a useful layer of memory to the places those stories routinely pass through.
Source: bollywoodHungama.com
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