Mumbaiwale: What secrets lie beneath the surface of your city?

Everywhere you go, they’re digging. Drains are being widened in one place; roads are being repaired in another. And every detour you take is partially closed off to build the Colaba-Bandra-Seepz underground Metro.

This is unusually high subterranean activity, which prompted a friend to wonder what lies beneath the Mumbai we know. Thankfully, in the last decade, a fair number of secrets have been unearthed. Take a look:

The secret bunker underneath Raj Bhavan

Beneath the Governor’s sprawling residence at Malabar Hill, a dark, dank, bunker was discovered three years ago. This isn’t a panic room. It spans 5,000 sq ft and is 150 metres long. It starts underneath the Durbar Hall and leads towards the sea. Long passageways and 13 empty rooms have been unearthed. The stone walls have ventilation shafts to let the air in (though mud and water have seeped in over the decades too).

How did it get here? It was probably built in 1875, to prepare for a visit by the Prince of Wales.

It eventually stocked ammunition, as the nameplates reading Small Arms Ammunition Store, Shell Store, Gun Shell and Cartridge Store in the bunker show. One reads Workshop, indicating the bunker might have been in use for some time. The bunker also has two small staircases, meaning there’s probably another level below, with still more secrets to share.

The 200-year-old tunnel under the GPO

In 2010, the General Post Office sprung a surprise when it announced that an old stone tunnel had been discovered (and uncovered) on its premises.

It opens at an unlikely spot too – in the building’s front garden, through what for years seemed like a cement covering of a manhole. But when it was opened, it revealed a rusty ladder leading down to dark, muddy depths.

Experts eventually conducted a proper investigation. The tunnel is long, strong, well preserved and judging by its dimensions, clearly built for humans, rather than animals. A dozen pillars in three rows were holding it up. It may have been an escape route or a storage hold but it was older than the GPO, which was only built in 1913.

The long passageway underneath St Georges Hospital

Right next to the GPO, at the St Georges Hospital, lies another tunnel. This one opened up right in the middle of one of the ground-floor wards, is 1.5 kilometres long and more than 200 years old, and seems to lead to a dead end.

But it’s made the Reserve Bank of India very nervous. The tunnel, discovered in 2010, has exits under the Gateway of India, the port area’s Blue Gate and Churchgate. What if thieves use the tunnel to raid the bank or orchestrate a terror attack?

The vault beneath CSMT

Imagine Gringotts bank from the Harry Potter stories, but closer home. Right under by the heritage gallery of the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus, the grand railway station, is the entrance to a kind of basement or warehouse built in the late 1800s.

It’s not some flimsy trapdoor. The grilled iron door weighs several kgs, has two concealed keyholes worked into its design and when opened leads to a zig-zagging staircase that leads to a second door, one with its own lock and set of keys.

This is the strongroom, the vault that was once used to hold the money collected by the railways before it was deposited in the banks. In here is a 4x4-foot lift, which needed two people to pull until it was powered by electricity in 1967. The lift would transfer coffers, filled with cash or documents, to the vault. A long iron pipe, sort of a funnel with a container at its base, would allow coins to be collected easily.

The place is surprisingly well ventilated. Grilled windows bring in some air and light. And architects still haven’t figured out how they were concealed. But you wouldn’t want to be stuck here. The vault is now empty.

First Published: Apr 13, 2019 00:05 IST