STREETS OF GOLD: MUMBAI

For most of the last two thousand years, the Indian subcontinent was the richest place on earth.  Three centuries of colonial rule put paid to that legacy but in 1991 India embraced the free market and this ushered in the fastest economic expansion in its modern history. The sun was shining on the Super Rich.

Streets of Gold: Mumbai is an observational documentary series shot across the busiest months of the year in India's most fashionable city.  Mumbai is the playground of India's many millionaires, billionaires and so-called Bollygarchs, some of whom live in vertical palaces that dominate the skyline. They have accumulated more money more quickly than in almost any country in history and enjoy lives of unparalleled luxury. 

In episode one a rare glimpse behind the gilded doors of Mumbai high society, including Abu Jani and Sandeep Khosla, two of Beyonce’s fashion designers who are launching a provocative new show, Gautam Singhania, a billionaire petrolhead, and the moving tale of the Birlas, one of Mumbai’s most illustrious families struck by tragedy.

They say Mumbai is the city that never sleeps and in episode two we meet Nikhil Tikam, a slum-dwelling entrepreneur running a textile business, Anupam Mittal, a penthouse-dwelling investor on India’s equivalent of Dragon’s Den, and Aradhana, fresh from Delhi and determined to make it in Mumbai’s cut throat entertainment industry.

It’s Fashion Week in episode three and the glamour is on. As India takes to the world stage we meet the young residents of Mumbai who are the city’s - and the country’s - beating heart. Shimona Nath and Chandani Purohit are runway models, Sudipan Das a young entrepreneur with plans to roll out a Holi music festival right across the country and Maleesha Kharwa is a sixteen year old from the slums who is being touted as India’s newest supermodel.

A city with such obvious displays of wealth inevitably acts as a magnet and people flock to Mumbai from all over the country to try and make their fortune in the “City of Dreams”. Alongside the affluence, extreme poverty is everywhere and in plain sight.  As one of our interviewees explains, ‘you might be living in the trenches but you’re still looking at the stars.’  But for rich and poor alike the air is electric with opportunity. 

And for the people who are riding the wave, this is India’s Gilded Age.