The Rock

Andheri is one of the most popular business destinations of Mumbai. This suburb of Mumbai commands a great amount of the working population of this city to throng it daily. Understandably the amount of residential and slum rises in this suburb has been enormous.

In the densely, kind of unplanned concrete urban jungle, however, lies a gem that surprisingly isn't known to a lot many here. The surprise graph rises exponentially when you realize that this gem is one of the only two kinds in the world.

Nestled amongst the slums of Gilbert Hill between Bhavans Campus, and Andheri Station lies a huge monolithic basalt rock structure known as Gilbert Hill. Aged nearly 65 million years old, the only structure similar to this is the Devil's Monument located in Wyoming, America.

A (now declared) Grade 2 heritage structure, this would have been silent confined to the annals of history had a few good men and women not woken up to the ill effects of quarrying work being done upon it by scrupulous unchecked builders under the nose of governing authorities. Today, you will need to clear an entire maze of ugly buildings and slums to reach this wonderful monument.

Atop the monument are two temples; as ugly as it may sound, but the truth is that Indians fear only God or someone stronger, not the law. God had to intervene here, for nobody would dare bring a temple down, and this structure today stands silently amidst the human squalor.

There isn't much source about the history of the hill. Locals say that it used to be an enormous structure dwarfing the entire landscape of Andheri, but the callous government and greedy builders couldn't bear that and in connivance with mute citizens they quarried down the structure to its sorry state today.

Nevertheless, climbing up the hill can be an amazing experience for you get a clear view of the landscape of this suburb and for once the sky looks clean, clear and without any clutter. I had some really memorable moments as I shot the naked skyline along with the mighty eagles fluttering around.

To reach Gilbert Hill, you will need to get down at Andheri Station and start walking from the road besides Ahura Bakery right infront of the West side station. It may take you about 15 minutes by foot and you may wrap up the entire excursion within a couple of hours at the max.

Before I wrap up my memories on this structure here are some of the beautiful web links written about the structure :