Introduction

The city I am from was my first fascination.

When I was younger, I thought Mumbai was the world, and it ended and began with the sea. As I got a bit older, I learnt about the seven islands and colonisation (in all its ugliness), I realised that history happened all around me in the squares and circles I passed every day, in cathedrals and museums and cinema halls I frequented, in buildings I glossed over without a second glance, and on the very streets I walked. This awareness gave me a new sense of the city – it felt like the sea, never-changing and ever-moving.A phrase I have often heard with respect to Mumbai is that you either love it, or you have not lived it. As a result of my albeit limited experiences, I wholeheartedly agree with this. This project is an attempt to trace Mumbai through the spaces that continue to hold its memory