Kalyan

This article is about a city in India. For other uses, see Kalyan (disambiguation).

Kalyan (Marathi: कल्याण) is a city in the part of the Konkan (or "Kokan") region included in Maharashtra state, and a major railway junction in the vicinity of Mumbai, India.

The city has been combined with its neighbor township of Dombivli to form the City Corporation of Kalyan-Dombivli.

It is considered a part of the Greater Bombay metropolitan agglomeration, along with New Bombay and the cities of Bhiwandi, Thane, Ulhasnagar and the Vasai-Virar region.

Geography

Kalyan city is located on the lower course of the Ulhas River with access to the Arabian Sea, via its two estuaries or creeks, the Thane Creek and the Vasai Creek. Kalyan is 48 km (30 mi) north-east of Mumbai. Overcrowding in Mumbai and incentives from the government to develop areas outside of Mumbai have attracted industrial business as well as industrial employees to Kalyan.

Kalyan was also considered at one time as one of the best places to live in the neighborhood of Mumbai, as it is far away from the pollution of the main city.

Kalyan Junction is a very important railway station for suburban travel as well as for long distance trains. The suburban or metropolitan railway passenger transport line coming in from Bombay splits into two at Kalyan Junction, one heads south-east for Karjat and Khapoli towards Lonavla, Mahabaleshwar and Pune, the other heads north-east for Kasara towards Nashik.

On the eastern side of the city is a large industrial complex where electrical equipment, rayon, and dyes and other chemicals are manufactured. There are also a large number of textile-based cottage industries.

History

Kalyan was a port for more than two millenia until siltation and the rise of Bombay eclipsed it and its sister ports, Sopara, Thane, Vasai, etc. The port was ruled by the Maurya and Gupta Empires of North India and later was part of a petty Konkan principality vassal to the Yadava Empire of Deogiri. Extensive ruins in Kalyan indicate the city's former magnificence.

After the Khilji sack of Deogiri, the Yadavas fled into the Konkan region and set up their base at Mahikawati, modern Mahim; Kalyan was a part of the brief Yadava state of Mahikawati. Mahikawati was conquered by the Muslims who set up petty coastal principalities.

As a major entrepot, Kalyan soon became, by 530-535 A.D. the seat of a Nestorian bishop ([1]). The Churches of South Asia which were ecclesiastically dependent on the Church of Assyria and Chaldea in Mesopotamia or modern Iraq, lands then subject to the Persian Empire (Sassanians), early fell with it into the Nestorian Schism and used Pahlavi as the liturgical language. The Konkan, Tulunad and Malabar Coasts of South Asia are marked by stone crosses with Pahlavi inscriptions.

During the Middle Ages, Pope John XX, headquartered at Avignon, sent a group of five missionaries to the Mongol Emperor at Khanbalik, modern Beijing in China, under the Dominican Fray Giordano or Jordanus. On their way, they picked up a novice, Demetrius, from West Asia and then travelled through South Asia, succoring the Nestorian Christians there, who were hard pressed by the Muslims. Giordano left his colleagues at Kalyan and travelled back north to Gujarat. During his absence, the Muslim governor and qazi of Thane summoned the missionaries and demanded submission to Islam; when they refused, they were murdered (1321). The local Nestorians collected their remains and buried them; Giordano, on his return, took them to Sopara and buried them there. The Muslim Arab sultan of Gujarat, when informed of this development, summoned his governor of Thane and the Qazi; the Qazi fled but the governor was executed for his actions that militated against international commerce. When a later missionary, Oderic of Pordenone ([2]), visited Thane in 1324-1325, he collected their remains and moved on to China.

The Martyrs of Thane were canonized by Pope Leo XIII and are Saints Thomas of Tolentino, James of Padua, Peter of Siena and Demetrius of Tiflis.

In the later Middle Ages, Kalyan was occupied by the Ahmadnagar Sultanate, an indigenous dynasty founded by a man forcibly converted from a Hindu Brahmin family as a child, and then by the Bijapur sultanate, an Indo-Turkish state in the Deccan in the 1500s, and later by the Mughals under the Emperor Shah Jahan, who fortified the city in the mid-1600s. It came under Portuguese sway for a brief time before being re-conquered by the Muslim allies of the Mughals, and was later conquered by the Marathas, who made it one of their strategic centers because it guarded the entrance to Bombay and the western coast of India. Kashibai, wife of the Peshwa Bajirao was born in Kalyan. About eighty years after the Maratha conquest, the Maratha Empire was forced to cede it to the British and Kalyan became part of the Bombay Presidency, a British India province that became Bombay state after India's independence in 1947.

Current developments

Kalyan has been experiencing a rapid growth as many people who work in Mumbai have opted to live here and commute to Mumbai. The housing is affordable compared to Mumbai. The travel time is approximately 45 minutes by fast trains and 1 hr 15 minutes by slow trains. There are many trains originating from Kalyan and going towards Mumbai CST.

Also many residents from the neighbouring crowded Ulhasnagar have opted to move out to Kalyan where a spate of new luxurious housing with facilities such as jogging tracks, gardens and swimming pools are coming up. Kalyan is also well connected to Thane by road which is 35 minutes away.

Kalyan has its own bus service, the Kalyan-Dombivli Municipal Transport (KDMT) run by the Kalyan-Dombivli Municipal Corporation. This service serves the twin cities of Kalyan and Dombivli as well as the villages around. It also has routes which serve Vashi and CBD Belapur in Navi Mumbai. Buses from the Navi Mumbai Muncipal Transport (NMMT) also operate till Dombivli.

Kalyan also has a vegetable market where farmers from the neighbouring villages and from Nashik and beyond sell their goods.

As you enter Kalyan from the Bhiwandi by road, you will see the ruins of the Durgadi Fort. Along the river banks are old brick lighthouses, which were used to guide vessels sailing up the river.

Part of Kalyan, including the railway station, Shivaji Chowk, Zunjarrao Nagar and Bail Bazar were submerged in more than 7 feet of water on July 26, 2005 when heavy rains caused the Barvi Dam to overflow and excess water was released to prevent a dam burst. Tilak Chowk and adjoining areas were spared from this.

Kalyan has had very little history of religious tensions since Independence although there is a significant presence of both the Hindus and Muslims. However on April 9 2002, there were riots at Rohidaswada sparked off by a tiff over autorickshaw fare between a Muslim rickshaw driver and a Hindu passenger ([3])

Mcdonald's mega mall (entertainment and amusement park) at Kalyan [4]

Westfield Retail Pvt. Ltd which is McDonald's West India Master Franchisee is currently developing a mammoth retail-cum-amusement mall at Kalyan, Maharashtra. The 10 lakh sq. ft. mall, called Metro Junction slated to become operational by end-2006, will compose of a 2 lakh sq. ft. Amusement Park and 5 lakh sq. ft. of dedicated retail space, such as Big Bazaar (the largest outlet on a single level anywhere in India) as the main anchor, with Fame Adlabs (4-screen multiplex), Timezone and McDonald's listed as the other major retailers.