A walk on Imamwada Road doesn’t prepare you for this slice of Persia. Ambling past nondescript humble eateries and shops selling kites and medicines, the mammoth blue structure springs up suddenly, at once captivating. The mosaic tiles and motifs have you stop and sigh ‘Blue Mosque’ after Istanbul’s famous attraction, but the roots of MughalContinue reading “Urban Oasis”
Category Archives: city stories
Victorian Ball
The red locomotive is the first thing that catches your eye. The nondescript, partially open gate a few feet ahead of Central Railways courtyard merits no special attention from a city on the move. But despite being slave to its schedules for half of one’s life, a quick peek into the glorious railway edifice can haltContinue reading “Victorian Ball”
In step with heritage
“If you go back to the 16th century, the Portuguese had complete monopoly over the sea trade route to India from Europe,” begins Alisha Sadikot, who runs the Inheritage Project in Mumbai. “Jan Huygen van Linschoten, a name largely forgotten, changed all that. An assistant of sorts to the archbishop in Goa, his magnum opus Itenario [aContinue reading “In step with heritage”
Becoming a child at Kahani Tree
“Aaaaaaaaccchhhooooooooooooooooooooooooo” Blork! Bluurf! I seem to have caught Gajapati Kulapati’s cold. Just wait till I catch hold of that elephant again! I feel a little biffsquiggled with this cold to be honest. But what I was saying was…when I walked in to Kahani Tree, an independent bookstore in Prabhadevi, I had but a few cats inContinue reading “Becoming a child at Kahani Tree”
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,Continue reading “A bibliophile’s guide to the city’s bookstores”
A Thousand Mornings 