Old Bombay, one stay at a time
Our story
Seven islands by the sea
Long before trains and towers, Mumbai was seven low islands — Colaba, Old Woman's Island, Bombay, Mazagaon, Parel, Worli and Mahim — home to Koli fishing families. The city's name comes from Mumbadevi, the Kolis' goddess. Dadar sat on the old Parel–Mahim side, among coconut groves, salt pans and paddy fields.
The Portuguese Church next door
Under Portuguese rule, Franciscan friars built a church here dedicated to Nossa Senhora da Salvação — Our Lady of Salvation. It is usually dated to 1596 (some say earlier) and was rebuilt in 1651. Locals still call it simply "the Portuguese Church". The striking modern building you see today, shaped like a great sail, was designed by architect Charles Correa in the 1970s. It is our neighbour and our landmark — "near the Portuguese Church" is how every taxi driver finds us.
A wedding gift becomes a port
In 1661 Portugal gave Bombay to England as part of Catherine of Braganza's dowry when she married King Charles II. In 1668 the king leased it to the East India Company for £10 a year. Its deep, sheltered harbour soon drew traders, shipbuilders and families from Gujarat, the Konkan, Persia and beyond.
Joining the islands
Governor William Hornby pushed ahead with the Hornby Vellard, a sea wall at Mahalakshmi finished around 1784, without waiting for London's approval. It stopped the sea flooding the low land between the islands. Over the next century, causeways and reclamation slowly stitched the seven islands into one — and the marshes around Dadar became land.
Asia's first passenger train
On 16 April 1853, a train with 14 carriages left Bori Bunder for Thane, about 34 km away — the first passenger train in India (and Asia). The line ran through the fields of Byculla, Parel and Dadar. Railways turned Dadar from a village into a junction, and later the meeting point of the Western (BB&CI) and Central (GIP) lines.
Mills, chawls and the girangaon
Cotton mills rose in Parel, Lalbaug and around Dadar, and workers came from the Konkan and the Deccan. They lived in chawls — long buildings of one-room homes around shared corridors where festivals, weddings and arguments all happened in the open. This area became the girangaon, the "village of mills", and the heart of Marathi Bombay.
A plague, and a planned new Dadar
In 1896 bubonic plague struck crowded Bombay. The new Bombay Improvement Trust (1898) answered with the Dadar–Matunga–Wadala–Sion scheme around 1899–1900 — one of the city's first planned suburbs, with wide roads, open plots and gardens. Families moved north from the packed old town, and Hindu Colony, Parsi Colony and Shivaji Park grew from this plan. Dadar as we know it was born here.
Lodges, dharamshalas and musafirkhanas
Old Bombay did not have many grand hotels for ordinary travellers. People stayed in dharamshalas run by community trusts, musafirkhanas near the docks and stations, and small family-run lodges with a boarding table. You came with a tin trunk and a bedroll, signed a thick register, got a key on a brass tag — and the manager knew your village by name.
That is the spirit Mother India keeps: a small lodge where the desk still knows your name.
Bun maska and chai at the Irani café
Zoroastrian migrants from Iran opened cafés on street corners across Bombay — high ceilings, bentwood chairs, marble-top tables, mirrors and a long list of house rules. For a few annas you got sweet chai, bun maska and a place to sit as long as you liked. Few remain now, so if you find one near the station, step in.
Shivaji Park, cinema and vada pav
Dadar became the cultural capital of Marathi Mumbai. Dadasaheb Phalke made India's first feature film, Raja Harishchandra (1913), while living in Dadar. Shivaji Park turned into a nursery of cricket legends and the stage for great public meetings. Marathi theatre found a home at Shivaji Mandir. And, the story goes, vada pav was first sold from a stall outside Dadar station around the 1960s–70s — Mumbai's favourite snack began on our doorstep.
Bombay becomes Mumbai
In 1995 the city officially took back the name its people had always used — Mumbai, after Mumbadevi. The mills had mostly closed by then, and the mill lands slowly turned into offices and towers. But Dadar kept its flower market, its temples, its old shops and its morning crowds.
Mother India Hotel, today
Our name recalls the classic 1957 film Mother India — a story of a mother's strength and of an India finding its feet. Our home is an old Mumbai-style guest house: brown wooden doors, a calm reception, simple rooms.
Now we are growing — new AC rooms, a dormitory on the way, online booking and a receptionist who answers WhatsApp in any language at 3 am. We like to think the old lodge-keepers of Dadar would approve: same warmth, a few new comforts.