Marine Drive in Mumbai: The Queen’s Necklace

It’s officially called the Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose Road, a name I can never remember, let alone spell.  But for most of the Mumbaikars, this place will always be known as Marine Drive.  And it’s also fondly known as the Queen’s necklace because street lights along the curved road illuminate at night, resembling a diamond necklace.

Here’s an image that I’d googled:

Masood and I went to Nariman Point for some business one morning, and after we were done around noon, we walked towards Marine Drive.  I had been insisting to see this place even before arriving in Mumbai!  I’d seen it in movies and had been looking forward to being there myself.

Beautifully laid out in South Mumbai, Marine Drive is actually a ‘C’-shaped six lane concrete road, which lengthens to 3 km along the coastline – a natural bay – it’s coastline a part of the Arabian Sea.  It was built in 1920.

The highlight of Marine drive is the beautiful promenade along the road – lined with trees – where people take in a breath of fresh air and view the sunsets.

Surprisingly, Mumbai isn’t as polluted as Delhi or Hyderabad.  Auto rikshaws are restricted to certain areas here, and almost all public transports have been converted to use compressed natural gas, or CNG.  So even the noise level on the roads is pretty low.

I love the shape of these concrete rocks!  While we were sitting there enjoying the breeze and view, we noticed several small crabs having a walk on these rocks.

According to Wikipedia, real estate prices along the esplanade are among the highest in India, and fourth in the world at US$2100 per square feet. A lot of celebrities live here, making it one of India’s premier residential community.   No wonder we saw lots of luxury cars along this road.  Also, there are a lot of fancy restaurants on the other side of the road, opposite the bay.  But we chose to eat pav bhaji in Chowpatty Beach.