) - Bhandup west Bhandup is one of the oldest suburbs in Mumbai. It is home to the Shivaji Talao, or Shivaji Lake, named after the
Maratha ruler,
Shivaji. Devotees of
Ganapati immerse idols of the elephant god, Ganesh at the lake during the months of August through September, as well as in the Bhandupeshwar Kundh in Bhandup Village East, near the Eastern Express Highway. The earliest records of Bhandup come from 1803, and show the contemporary Bhandup
estate to comprise Bhandup,
Nahur, and
Kanjur Marg. The
Silaharas, also known as
Shilahara, were the rulers of this region, with partial
Dravidian ancestry, who later mixed with the Prakrit speaking Indo-Aryan locals of
Konkan. The
Silaharas promoted socio-economic progress in the 11th century around Bombay. To control the regions in Bombay and Thane, they built the
Rajapatha, passing from the north of Bhandup, following the current Bombay-Thane road. Historical records indicate that the distillery at Bhandup was one of the two biggest sources of
liquor in the
Bombay Presidency, the other being the
Uran distillery. Bhandup was also one of the first
railway stations in India. The first train ran between
Bori Bunder and
Thane on 16 April 1853 with 400 passengers aboard 14 railway carriages, at 3:35 pm. It is said that the idea to connect Bombay with Thane and
Kalyan occurred to Mr. George Clark, the Chief Engineer of the Bombay Government, on a visit to Bhandup in 1843. However, Bhandup was not a part of Bombay until 1950, when the boundaries of the Bombay municipal corporation were extended up to
Andheri on the western side and Bhandup on the eastern side. ==Demographics==