Travel

Mumbai Chor Bazaar – Photos + 7 Tips For The First Timers

- By Anamika Mishra

One fine day, me & my friend decided to go for a photo-walk in Mumbai Chor bazaar. We both were clueless about the place, location and what we’d experience. We just knew that it’s somewhere near Grant road in South Mumbai.

We grabbed our cameras and left. As it was our first time, we couldn’t located the exact market. We reached another flea market called Bhendi Bazaar which is 2 lanes away from Chor Bazaar. We reached the market after 15 minutes of walking, felt like clueless tourists.

It was a new experience. Though, we felt a little awkward because the gentry at that time wasn’t that good (read bad). Don’t expect the place to be beautiful and clean, in fact it is the shoddiest place I’ve ever visited and I don’t think I going there again!

So by Chor Bazaar, it is actually meant Thieves Market, which is over 150 years old flea market. It was initially called Shor Bazaar. Shor Bazaar changed its name to Chor Bazaar when the British started pronouncing Shor to Chor. Eventually by the influence of its name, stolen goods started coming and being sold in the market. Here are some tips for the first timers.

Only cash

None accepts credit cards there, so be sure you have enough cash with you. We didn’t carry cash, else I would have bought old classic bollywood posters and an antique typewriter.

Be sure about the correct location

The closest station is the Grant Road railway station. It is exactly located on a street called the Mutton Street which is between SV Patel and Moulana Shaukat Ali Roads. Lanes are narrow and dense. Also, GPS doesn’t give you the correct location, so don’t depend on it.

Be careful of the pick pockets

This market is quite crowded and has disintegrated buildings which might make you feel messed in the market. In this case, just be careful of the pick pockets and keep an eye on the wallets and handbags all the time. We consider ourselves as lucky as we hardly got any crowd.

Take a note of the market timings

That area has lots of Muslim residents. So, avoid going during the prayer hours as it might be extra-crowded than usual. Also, the shop timings may vary from the regular daily timings. All the other days, the market becomes active from 11 AM, lasting till 7:30 PM.

Take care of what you wear

We wore our casual dresses which was actually a bad idea. It is advisable that you wear a pair of loose comfortable clothes like jeans & t-shirts!

Know in advance what to buy

This place is sure to make you drool if you love collecting antiques. You might get confused for what to buy if you didn’t have a clear picture. So, make sure you know what you want to buy!

Be extremely good on bargaining skills

Even though the products are stolen from the city around and at times are second hand, there is a high probability to be able to bargain to a great extent for the products you want. We asked for one typewriter, at first the shopkeeper quoted INR 4000 but when I told him that I don’t have cash with me, he dropped the price to INR 1200. My bad was, I just had INR 500 with me. But this incident is just to let you know the level of bargaining possible in Mumbai Chor bazaar.

Though I didn’t buy anything from the Chor Bazaar of Mumbai, but I did click lots of photos of the place as you saw above. Have a look!