Bhulabhai Desai Road, also well known by the old name Warden Road (and the part at and near the swimming pool as Breach Candy), is a niche up-market residential and semi-commercial locality of

South Mumbai South Mumbai, colloquially SoBo from South Bombay in Anglo-Indian English, administratively the Mumbai City District, is the city centre and the southernmost precinct of Greater Bombay. It extends from Colaba to Mahim and Sion neighbour ...

. The area has many famous landmarks beside its long and winding stretch, from the Breach Candy Hospital to the Amarsons and Tata gardens and Lincoln House, former location of the

Consulate General of the United States, Mumbai The Consulate General of the United States in Mumbai represents the interests of the U.S. government in Mumbai, India and nearby surrounding areas. Location The Consulate General is located at C-49 G-Block, Bandra-Kurla Complex, Bandra (East ...

. The elite Breach Candy Club in the neighbourhood features the country's largest India-shaped swimming pool. Just off Bhulabhai Desai Road is the women-only

Sophia College Sophia College (Autonomous) is an undergraduate women's college established in 1941 by Society of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. It is affiliated to the University of Mumbai. The governing body of The Society for the Higher Education of Women in In ...

. The 18th century Mahalaxmi Temple, which honors the Hindu goddess of wealth and wisdom, is situated nearby on the edge of sea. It is one of the most famous temples of Mumbai and attracts millions of devotees and tourists each year. The area falls under the 'D-Ward' of the BMC and shares the postal code 400 026 under the

Cumballa Hill Cumbala Hill (also spelled Cumballa) is a hill and upmarket neighbourhood in South Mumbai flanked by the sea on the West, Altamount Road on the East, Malabar Hill on the South and Mahalaxmi on the North. The hill is at an elevation of . Along ...

post office. It lies 21 kilometers south of

Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport is an international airport serving Mumbai and the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR). It is the second busiest airport in the country in terms of total and international passenger traffic af ...

and just 2 kilometers from the Mumbai Central station. It is well connected by local buses run by

BEST Best or The Best may refer to: People * Best (surname), people with the surname Best * Best (footballer, born 1968), retired Portuguese footballer Companies and organizations * Best & Co., an 1879–1971 clothing chain * Best Lock Corporation ...

. Geographically, this road curls around the

Arabian Sea The Arabian Sea ( ar, اَلْبَحرْ ٱلْعَرَبِيُّ, Al-Bahr al-ˁArabī) is a region of the northern Indian Ocean bounded on the north by Pakistan, Iran and the Gulf of Oman, on the west by the Gulf of Aden, Guardafui Channel ...

. Because of its picturesque location, real estate prices here are among the most expensive in the country.

Etymology

The origin of the name ''Breach Candy'', first attested by 1828 at least, is widely given as an Anglicisation of an Arabic-Marathi name ''Burj-khāḍī'' ('the tower of the creek'); this is also given in the famous ''

Hobson-Jobson ''Hobson-Jobson: A Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases, and of Kindred Terms, Etymological, Historical, Geographical and Discursive'' is a historical dictionary of Anglo-Indian words and terms from Indian languages which came in ...

'' dictionary. However, this interpretation is disputed. In seventeenth- to nineteenth-century English, ''breach'' had meanings including 'the breaking of waves on a coast', 'surf made by the sea breaking over rocks; broken water, breakers' and 'a break in a coast, a bay, harbour', and may in the context of Breach Candy even have been used to refer to a

breakwater Breakwater may refer to: * Breakwater (structure), a structure for protecting a beach or harbour Places * Breakwater, Victoria, a suburb of Geelong, Victoria, Australia * Breakwater Island Breakwater Island () is a small island in the Palme ...

at the location. Thus, although the ''breach'' part of the name could be an Anglicisation of a local word, it could simply be an English word in its own right. Meanwhile, ''Candy'' may be an Anglicisation of

Marathi Marathi may refer to: *Marathi people, an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group of Maharashtra, India *Marathi language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people *Palaiosouda, also known as Marathi, a small island in Greece See also * * ...

''khind'' ('mountain pass') or

Kannada Kannada (; ಕನ್ನಡ, ), originally romanised Canarese, is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by the people of Karnataka in southwestern India, with minorities in all neighbouring states. It has around 47 million native s ...

''khindi'' ('a breach').

History

Mahalakshmi Temple at Breach Candy, Bombay by Francis Frith

Not long ago, Breach Candy was sparsely populated with very few bungalows and mansions. Most of the residents were born into old money. Some of these bungalows and mansions still stand. The Breach Candy House, the Breach Candy Swimming Club and the Breach Candy Hospital have been present since the time of

British rule The British Raj (; from Hindi ''rāj'': kingdom, realm, state, or empire) was the rule of the British Crown on the Indian subcontinent; * * it is also called Crown rule in India, * * * * or Direct rule in India, * Quote: "Mill, who was hims ...

. At the northern foot of the

, in the part now called Breach Candy, was a temple to three goddesses—

Mahakali Mahakali () is the Hindu goddess of time and death in the goddess-centric tradition of Shaktism. Similar to Kali, Mahakali is a fierce goddess associated with universal power, time, life, death, and both rebirth and liberation. She is the cons ...

Mahalakshmi Lakshmi (; , sometimes spelled Laxmi, ), also known as Shri (, ), is one of the principal goddesses in Hinduism. She is the goddess of wealth, fortune, power, beauty, fertility and prosperity, and associated with '' Maya'' ("Illusion"). Al ...

and

Mahasaraswati Saraswati ( sa, सरस्वती, ) is the Hindu goddess of knowledge, music, art, speech, wisdom, and learning. She is one of the Tridevi, along with the goddesses Lakshmi and Parvati. The earliest known mention of Saraswati as a god ...

. A creek to the north separated the island of Bombay from the Koli island of

Worli Worli (ISO: ''Varaḷī'', �əɾ(ə)ɭiː is a locality in South Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. It is one of the four peninsulas of Mumbai while the other being Colaba, Bandra and Malabar Hill. The sea connects it with Bandra via the Band ...

. This creek was filled after the completion of the

Hornby Vellard The Hornby Vellard was a project to build a causeway uniting all seven islands of Bombay into a single island with a deep natural harbour. The project was started by the governor William Hornby in 1782 and all islands were linked by 1838. The wo ...

in 1784. Soon after, the modern temple of

was built here. What are now the Amarson and Tata gardens were landfills with abandoned construction trucks, cranes and bulldozers probably used in land reclamation projects. A few of these trucks were parked in a truck-sized garage behind Scandal Point. Similarly, trucks, cranes and bulldozers were seen abandoned on the land which is now known as Priyadarshini Park.

Notable residents

Kailash Surendranath Kailash Surendranath is an Indian advertising filmmaker. Surendranath is best known for producing ''Mile Sur Mera Tumhara (unity-in-diversity)'' song in 1986 and directing revised version of the same in 2010. He directed the 2001 romantic comedy ...

, film director * RK Laxman, Cartoonist *

Asha Bhosle Asha Bhosle (; Mangeshkar; born 8 September 1933) is an Indian playback singer, entrepreneur and occasional actress and television personality who predominantly works in Indian Cinema. Known for her versatility, she has been described in the ...

, Singer *

Ronnie Screwvala Rohinton Soli "Ronnie" Screwvala (born 8 September 1956) is an Indian entrepreneur. He has been named on Esquire's List of the 75 Most Influential People of the 21st Century and ranked 78 among the 100 most influential people in the world on t ...

, producer and CEO and founding chairman of UTV Group *

Annapurna Devi (1927 – 13 October 2018) was an Indian surbahar (bass sitar) player of Hindustani classical music. She was given the name 'Annapurna' by former Maharaja Brijnath Singh of the former Maihar Estate (M.P.), and it was by this name that she was p ...

, notable Indian classical musician and former wife of

Pandit Ravi Shankar Ravi Shankar (; born Robindro Shaunkor Chowdhury, sometimes spelled as Rabindra Shankar Chowdhury; 7 April 1920 – 11 December 2012) was an Indian sitarist and composer. A sitar virtuoso, he became the world's best-known export of North Ind ...

*Apeksha Desai, Marathoner *

Homi Adajania Homi Adajania (born 1972) is an Indian film director and writer. He made his directorial debut with ''Being Cyrus'' (2006), an English-language psychological drama. He followed this with the commercially successful Hindi-language romantic comedy ...

, Filmmaker *

Bhanu Athaiya Bhanu Athaiya (née Rajopadhye; 28 April 192915 October 2020) was an Indian costume designer and painter. She was the only woman member of the Bombay Progressive Artists' Group and the first Indian to win an Academy Award. Alongside being Bolly ...

, Oscar-winning costume designer for ''Gandhi'' *

Naina Lal Kidwai Naina Lal Kidwai (born 1957) is an Indian banker, chartered accountant and business executive. She was formerly a Group General Manager and the Country Head of HSBC India. She is also a former President of the Federation of Indian Chambers of C ...

, businesswoman *

Jagjit Singh Jagjit Singh (born Jagmohan Singh Dhiman; 8 February 1941 – 10 October 2011) was an Indian composer, singer and musician. He composed and sang in numerous languages and is credited for the revival and popularity of ghazal, an Indian c ...

, classical singer *

Aarti Chhabria Aarti Chabria (born 21 November 1982) is an Indian actress and a former model who appears in Hindi, Telugu, Punjabi and Kannada films. Career Actress Aarti Chabria started her career as a model in advertisements at the age of three years. H ...

, actress *

Salman Rushdie Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie (; born 19 June 1947) is an Indian-born British-American novelist. His work often combines magic realism with historical fiction and primarily deals with connections, disruptions, and migrations between Eastern and Wes ...

, author. Born and raised in Breach Candy, he describes the area as it was from Indian independence to the 1960s in ''

Midnight's Children ''Midnight's Children'' is a 1981 novel by Indian-British writer Salman Rushdie, published by Jonathan Cape with cover design by Bill Botten, about India's transition from British colonial rule to independence and partition. It is a postc ...

''. *

Azim Premji Azim Hashim Premji (born 24 July 1945) is an Indian businessman, investor, engineer, and philanthropist, who was the chairman of Wipro Limited. Premji remains a non-executive member of the board and founder chairman. He is informally known as ...

, chairman and CEO of

Wipro Technologies Wipro Limited (formerly, Western India Palm Refined Oils Limited) is an Indian multinational corporation that provides information technology, consulting and business process services. Thierry Delaporte is serving as CEO and managing director ...

Shibani Bathija Shibani Bathija is an Indian screenwriter known for her works in Bollywood films such as ''Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna'', ''Kidnap'', '' My Name Is Khan'' and '' Fanaa''. Bathija studied English at DePauw University and Communications at San Francisc ...

, screenwriter *

Supriya Sule Supriya Sule (; born 30 June 1969) is an Indian politician from the Nationalist Congress Party and currently a Member of Parliament (MP) in the 17th Lok Sabha representing Baramati. She previously served as an MP in the 15th and 16th Lok Sabh ...

, politician *

Tara Sharma Tara Sharma (born 11 January 1977) is a British actress, entrepreneur, creator, co-producer and host of ''The Tara Sharma Show''. She is the daughter of authors Partap Sharma and Susan Sharma. She made her bollywood debut in Anupam Kher direct ...

, actress *

Partap Sharma Partap Sharma (12 December 1939 – 30 November 2011) was an Indian playwright, novelist, author of books for children, commentator, actor and documentary film-maker. Background Sharma was born in Lahore, Punjab, India (now in Pakistan) and w ...

, author and playwright *

Alyque Padamsee Alyque Padamsee (5 March 1928 – 17 November 2018) was an Indian theatre personality and ad film maker. He played Muhammad Ali Jinnah in the 1982 British period film ''Gandhi''. Besides being involved in Indian theatre as an actor and produce ...

, theatre producer and actor *

Ramesh Balsekar Ramesh S. Balsekar (25 May 1917 – 27 September 2009) was a disciple and principle translator of the late Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, a renowned Advaita master. From early childhood, Balsekar was drawn to Advaita, a nondual teaching, particularl ...

, Advaita Vendanta master *

Kishore Kumar Kishore Kumar (born as Abhas Kumar Ganguly (); 4 August 1929 – 13 October 1987) was an Indian playback singer and actor. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest, most influential and dynamic singers in the history of Indian music. He ...

, Singer *

Lata Mangeshkar Lata Mangeshkar () (born as Hema Mangeshkar; 28 September 1929 – 06 February 2022) was an Indian playback singer and occasional music composer. She is widely considered to have been the greatest and most influential singers in India. Her cont ...

, Singer

Education

Green Lawns High School Green is the color between cyan and yellow on the visible spectrum. It is evoked by light which has a dominant wavelength of roughly 495570 Nanometre, nm. In subtractive color systems, used in painting and color printing, it is created by ...

* Activity High School *

DSB International School DSB International School, also known as Deutsche Schule Bombay, is an international school located in the city of Mumbai, India. It provides the National Curriculum of England and the German Curriculum of Thuringia and was established in 1961 ...

(German school) Garden CampusContact Us
."

. Retrieved on 11 February 2015. "Garden Campus: Students from Kindergarten to Year 3 / Klasse 4 DSB INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL 76 Bhulabhai Desai Road, Breach Candy Mumbai - 400 026 India." and "Aurum House: Students from Year 5 / Klasse 5 DSB INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL 25 Dadi Seth Road, Babulnath Mumbai - 400 007 India. "

Picture links

Gordon Gibbons Photographs of Breach Candy 1937-1940

References

{{Tourist attractions in Mumbai Neighbourhoods in Mumbai Streets in Mumbai