Maharashtra is one of the largest state in India both in terms of population and areas. Its booming capital, Bombay, makes it not only one of the most important states economically but also a major arrival points for overseas visitors. From bombay you can head off into India in number of directions but most travellers will either be heading south through Pune, with its famous ashram, to Goa or North-East to the amazing cave temples of Ajanta and Ellora. Most of the state stands on the high Deccan pleateau and histrocially this was the main centre for the Maratha empire which defied the Moghuls for so long and under the fearless rule of Shivaji carved out a large part of central India as their own domain.

Mumbai
Political capital of Maharashtra, and commercial capital of India, Mumbai is many cities in one. As the world's largest textiles market, a major industrialcentre and the country's busiest port handling over 40 percent of India's maritime trade, it contributes around 50 percent of the national exchequer. The city hums with activity, and its more than eight million residents and three million commuters seem to be constantly on the move.

Natural increase and steady rural migration have quadrupled Bombay's population over the last 40 years. Theoriginal island of Bombay consolidating a number of earlier islands-is only 24 kilometres (15 miles) long and some four kilometres (2.5 miles) wide at its broadest point, and has a population density of over 43,000 persons per square kilometre (100,000 per square mile), amongst the highest in the world. Pavement dwellers and slums coexist with modem skyscrapers and gracious colonial buildings, obsolete textile mills with impressive modem factories, Christian churches with Hindu temples in a medley of contradictions that makes Mumbai a product of the Indian past that holds the key to the present and the future.