Bombay Mix

One of the things I particularly like about Ibn Battutah compared to your average medieval travel writer is that he was unashameably interested in the good things in life. And there are few things he seems to have enjoyed more than a good old slap-up meal. This strikes a cord with me, not least in India, where the opportunity to get in among the curries has been a big part of the country's appeal. Faced with just half a day to explore the delights of Bombay, the culinary capital of the country, I decided to take the risk of sampling a fish curry, a treat I've been denying myself in this hot land for the same reasons I've been laying off the local turd-fed pork. Well, nothing ventured nothing gained, I can now say I've just eaten one of the best meals of my life at the Mahesh Lunch Home - a fabulous tandooried white salmon served with a spicy Mangolorean coconut based sauce. Old Ibn Battutah would be proud of me, and it's certainly brightened up a day otherwise filled with grinding train travel and irate arguments with taxi drivers.

Bombay was one of the only bits of the British Empire we didn't obtain through warfare, violent intimidation or post-victory peace treaty. It came as a marriage gift from the Portuguese in 1661, following the wedding of Charles II to Catherine of Braganza. As such, it was one of the longest held British possessions in India and of greater importance until the twentieth century than Delhi. Given that fact it's interesting to see that the old colonial Fort area of the city is fairly modest in scale. It's comparable to the town centre of a middling size English county town. There is some grandeur here, of course, particularly in the colossal Victoria Terminus railway station, which dominates the north end of the Fort with all the appearance of a neo-gothic cathedral of science and industry, a sort of V & A Museum for steam trains.

However, the building I made a bee-line for was the more modest and homely St Thomas' Cathedral. This simple church houses a fascinating set of memorials to the great and good of the East India Company and the British military services, primarily dating from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Among the countless memorials to young men who seem mostly to have died in violent circumstances or of sudden disease in their 20s and 30s, is one that particularly struck a cord. It is a cenotaph that remembers Lieut. Bertie Bowers of the Royal Indian Marine, who died on Capt. Scott's Antartic Expedition to the South Pole in 1912. Recently, I finished reading a book entitled 'The Worst Journey In the World' which is a memoir of the expedition written by one of the survivors. It's salutary to remember as you sashay through one country after another that the occasional irritations and difficulties encountered along the way are nothing compared to the hardships put up with by other travelers in different places and times.