As part of an internship with a newspaper in Mumbai, I was asked to navigate Linking Road, Bandra and find out more about the stretch of road that millions flock to from all over Mumbai
To people from Mumbai, some names are instantly recognizable and they make the association between a name and a place lightning fast. Many thousands in Mumbai make the association between the name Linking Road to a road on which one buys cheap knock offs of some of the best brands across the world.
Accounts of when people started setting up shop on Linking Road differ widely depending on who you might ask. Some of the older members of the street side shopping mall say that it has been there since 1977. Others say it started up sometime between 1994 and 1995. Yet others also say that it is as recent 2002. The street itself was built in the 1940’s and served as one of the first major roads that connected the suburbs of Juhu and Bandra. Initially, Linking Road and Hill road were the main shopping hubs but over the last couple of decades has stretched to much more than its original length. The most important bit of the entire road however is a roughly 130 metre stretch that has everything that a fashionista on a budget might require, from shoes, belts and full length dresses to shirts, sunglasses, jewellery and even makeup.
Most of the stores that exist on the street are illegal. In fact, the only legal establishments on the 130 metre stretch can be counted on one hand. But it hasn’t stopped business from flourishing there. It isn’t as if the people who work there don’t know this. They just have ways of circumventing it.
“Most of the week we don’t sell too much. There’s very few people who come here during that time. Saturday and Sunday are very different. We don’t get time to eat lunch or drink something until five in the evening. The place is packed constantly and there’s very little place to move,”
A man arranges his store as he sets up for the morning.
"We start setting up our stores at 11 in the morning and are ready to go by noon. We only leave the area at 9:30 and that is if there aren't enough people on the streets looking to buy from us.
"We came to Mumbai from Amravati four months ago, its such a different kind of life but we're settling in; working for my Seth (Landlord) and it pays pretty well.” "we've learnt so much here in the last couple of months, much more than if we'd stayed on in Amravati."
A man peeks through the clothes of his store as he arranges his display.
“Indian manufacturers can never do perfect reproductions, but the stuff from China is very well copied. They do a very good job. On top of that, it lasts for two months.” That is the real allure of Linking road, you buy it cheap and throw it away once it has outlived its usefulness.
Rickshaw drivers wait at a circle near Linking Road offering share rides to the Bandra Railway Station which is a 10 minute ride away.
A lady hawks balloons with her child in tow.
Shoppers move through the streets while hawkers offer up their goods, each with a better discount than the other.
A man selling jewellery in the evening takes a break.
A sugarcane juice store sits right next to a store that sells shoes.
“We want to make an honest living, we really do but people really like bargaining, so we have to mark up the prices. If we ever sold things at the price that people pay we’d have nothing to feed our families with”
