Category: mumbai

  • A bibliophile’s guide to the city’s bookstores

    A bibliophile’s guide to the city’s bookstores

    The last time I visited a bookstore (which was just last week), I sat down to read Neil Gaiman’s The View from the Cheap Seats: incidentally, a chapter wherein he talks about his favourite bookstores. It ends like this: “Writing this, all those bookshops come back, the shelves, and the people…I wonder who I would have been,…

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  • Walking back in time

    Walking back in time

    It’s 1874. Mumbai’s first tram has just pulled away from Parel TT towards Colaba. As the horse-drawn carriage trudges ahead, a turn of the head reveals a stepwell, wide enough to accommodate the horses. Remember it is the age of nobility. Little wonder then that the news of Prince Albert’s arrival a year later has…

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  • Treasure trove

    This time I was in the desert, watching the story of Dodola and Zam unfold from a distance. From the ruined ship to the Palace grounds, I saw fate tear apart the lives of these child slaves, their changing relationship and perpetual struggle to build a world for themselves.  A few months prior, I was…

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  • Finding the muse

    Walking through the maze of green, past sparsely populated animal enclosures, you wonder if the visit is going to pay any dividends. But the moment you cross the gateway, a different shade of green greets you. More subtle and inviting, the celadon green goes well with the Palladian architecture of the restored Bhau Daji Lad…

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