Gateway of India

The impetus for the Gateway came from the royal visit of 1911, when King George V and Queen Mary attended the Delhi Durbar and subsequently visited Bombay. A temporary structure of cardboard and plaster greeted them at Apollo Bunder; the permanent replacement was commissioned immediately. The architect George Wittet, a Scotsman who had already designed the Prince of Wales Museum (now the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya) and the Institute of Science, drew on the Indo-Saracenic vocabulary that the colonial administration preferred for its major public buildings — a hybrid that combined Islamic pointed arches, Hindu temple brackets, and Western engineering into structures that satisfied no single tradition but became a recognisable style of colonial Bombay.

Wittet's design drew specifically from the Gujarati Dargah tradition of the sixteenth century: the central arch is flanked by four turrets with latticed stone jharokha screens, and the whole is executed in yellow Kharodi basalt quarried from sites near the city. Construction began in 1915 and was slowed by the First World War; the foundation stone had already been laid in 1913 by the Governor of Bombay, Sir George Sydenham Clarke. The finished structure was inaugurated on 4 December 1924 by the Viceroy, Lord Reading.

The symbolic function of the arch reversed within twenty-four years of its completion. On 28 February 1948, the First Battalion of the Somerset Light Infantry marched through the Gateway and onto HMS Glasgow, the last British troops to depart the newly independent nation. The moment was photographed and filmed — the Union Flag coming down, the arch framing the troopship's departure — and the Gateway has carried that double meaning ever since: the point of colonial arrival and, more decisively, the point of colonial exit.

The adjacent Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, completed in 1903 by the industrialist Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata, predates the Gateway and provides the ensemble's other anchor. Local lore holds that Tata built it after being refused entry to the Europeans-only Watson's Hotel. The story is disputed by historians but persists because it aligns too neatly with Mumbai's mythology of ambition overcoming exclusion.

The esplanade around the Gateway is open and ungated, but the volume of visitors — the site absorbs several thousand people on weekday evenings and substantially more on weekends — creates practical pressures. Hawkers selling balloons, toys, photography services, and ferry tickets operate throughout the foreshore; many offer 'free' boat rides that transition quickly into aggressive upcharging. The government MTDC ferry counter, marked with a green board, is the only legitimate source for Elephanta tickets. It is located in the colonnade to the immediate east of the arch, facing the harbour.

Ferry passengers must pass through a security check before boarding any vessel; carry photo identification. On the return journey from Elephanta, boarding at the Elephanta jetty can become disorganised when multiple ferries load simultaneously — position yourself early if you have a fixed return deadline.

Drone operation above the Gateway and surrounding harbour is prohibited under DGCA regulations without advance coordination with Mumbai Port Trust and the Civil Aviation Authority. Violations are enforced. Tripod use on the esplanade is technically subject to permit, though enforcement is inconsistent for small travel tripods at uncrowded times. After 21:00, when the tourist population thins, the esplanade becomes a gathering place for young Mumbaikars — the atmosphere shifts from tourist landmark to neighbourhood fixture and the arch is worth revisiting purely for that transition.

The most common mistake at the Gateway is treating it as a ten-minute photograph stop on the way to an Elephanta ferry. Give it a proper visit at dawn, when the sky over the harbour goes through a rapid sequence of colours and the BEST buses from CSMT are disgorging the first wave of city workers. The pigeons that coat the arch at midday largely abandon it in the early morning, revealing the quality of the basalt carving on the turrets.

For the ferry: arrive at the MTDC counter by 09:15 at the latest if you want a seat on the 09:30 sailing rather than the 10:00 or later. The crossing takes roughly 70 minutes and provides a genuinely instructive view of Mumbai Harbour — the Mazagon Dock shipyard, the navy installations at INS Angre, the industrial shore of Elephanta Island before the tourist approach. Carry water; the ferry does not sell it at reliable prices.

At the monument itself, the best light for photography falls on the harbour-facing (south) side in the early morning and on the city-facing (north) side in the late afternoon. If you are visiting with a vehicle, the Colaba causeway offers paid parking at ₹40–60 per hour at the MTDC lot. Auto-rickshaws do not operate in the island city south of Mahim — take a metered taxi (flag-fall ₹25, then ₹18 per km on older Kaali-Peeli cabs) or a ride-share app.