India - Bombay

Bombay (known as Mumbai since 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra.  Various letters from March 1916 onwards, when Cyril Sladden arrived in Mesopotamia, make reference to Bombay, as mail would go via Bombay en route for Basra.  When Cyril was wounded in April 1916, he was initially sent to a hospital in Bombay, arriving there on 24th April.

In 1917, Mela Brown Constable had high hopes that Cyril might be able to get leave from Mesopotamia and meet her in Bombay if she were able to get a passport to travel to India.  For several months she was hopeful that her passport application might be successful and suggested that she would wait at the Taj Mahal Hotel, and make herself known to the clergy at the cathedral, until Cyril was able to join her.  But the authorities felt it was too dangerous to issue a passport, so this never came to pass.