A LETTER TO MUMBAI

Of love, longing, and reality checks - four authors present four short stories sharing their tryst with Mumbai - some real, some imaginary, some about the heart of the city

- SAMREEN TUNGEKAR

I start planning in my head a few months before, while still in London. My imagination wanders through the streets of Mumbai, thinking about what I am going to eat first, which restaurants I will go to, and what I will order. I'm going to have my first nariyal pani in Dadar from the man that stands on the corner next to the key cutters. First meal will be at Café Mysore - idli sambhar, some form of vadas, and sweet coffee.

Maybe I'll buy some snacks from them too for the overnight train journeys. I'll be there at end of May, so mangoes at Crawford market are a must, and if I'm there, then a trip across the road to Badshah Cold Drink for a mango falooda is in order, it would be rude not to. I wonder if Britannia will have Tarela Boomla on the menu when I am there (a very seasonal dish of a fried fish affectionally known as the Bombay duck). And this is how it goes in my brain until I'm 35,000 feet up in the air, heading destinations to one of my favourite culinary on the globe.

But this time around, it's different. This trip is special, I've waited a long time for this one. My good friend and talented photographer Oliver Chanarin and I have been planning this trip for a year, it is the final portion to be completed so that I can finally publish my Parsi cookbook that I have been working on for many years. It is finally time to visit India, eat lots, and photograph even more.

At the tail end of Covid quarantine, our tickets were booked last minute and cost a pretty penny, so we had to make this trip worth it. The Parsi community have woven a rich tapestry through Bombay, from architecture and buildings, iconic cafes, and long-standing restaurants to the many agiaries and wells dotted around the city. Statues of philanthropic Parsis watch over the city, serving as a reminder of the contributions to modern day Mumbai.