Chor Bazaar, located near Bhendi Bazaar in South Mumbai, is one of the largest flea markets in India.[1] The word Chor means thief in Hindi-Urdu. It was originally called Shor Bazaar, meaning noisy market, but became chor because of the British pronunciation the word.[citation needed] Eventually stolen goods started finding their way into the market, resulting in it living up to its new name. It is now famous for antique and vintage items.[2][3]
A store called Mini Market offers old Bollywood posters for sale.[4] Others offer authentic Victorian furniture, replacement parts for automobiles, etc. Although bargains are sometimes staggering, haggling is considered mandatory.[5] This area is one of the tourist attractions of Mumbai.
This is basically an "organized" flea market, where one has to rummage through junk to find what one wants. There's a saying about this area, if you lose anything in Mumbai you can buy it back from the "Chor Bazaar".[6] It has been mentioned in popular novels like Rohinton Mistry's Such a Long Journey[6] as "not a nice place".[7]
A popular story about the origin of the name of the market is that a violin and some other belongings of Queen Victoria went missing while being unloaded from her ship while on a visit to Bombay later to be found for sale in the thieve's market. [8]