Bombay Jules Blog

Bombay-Jules-Blog-LogoI started writing as BombayJules (rather awkwardly and disjointedly) when I moved to Mumbai in June 2012.  Previously, I was a Financial Controller – working mostly in the real-estate industry – and living happily with my husband (“Mr Jules”) and two cats in an old house in South London.

Many of my friends are already expats living abroad – in such glamorous places as New York, Barcelona, Abu Dhabi, Dubai and New Zealand.  I kind of always dreamt that if I could live and work somewhere overseas, it would be somewhere like New York – clean, well infrastructured, cosmopolitan and buzzing.  Or Tokyo, with its fabulous sushi and hi-tech toilets. But it was never to be. And I never thought for one moment I’d end up living in India.
However, when  Mr Jules was asked by his company to come out to Mumbai to work, we were surprisingly unhesitant to make the leap. Mumbai! – hardly the sophisticated “Sex and the City” metropolis I had dreamt about, but something was pulling us and we didn’t say no.  In fact (and rightly so) we viewed the move as an exciting opportunity both on professional and personal levels.Before moving out, I did a lot of research on Mumbai, mostly through MumbaiBoss. This site alone made me realise that Mumbai is rather a cool city.  OK, it may be lacking in natural beauty –  but the arts, restaurant and shopping scene kind of makes up for that.  The upwardly mobile are burgeoning, and the not so upwardly mobile are trying their hardest.  Everyone generally has a smile.