Decode Mumbai’s most iconic neighbourhood on a walking tour that unearths and spotlights its hidden histories – that lie behind, around, and within, the buildings, streets and spaces so familiar today. We walk back through the area’s earliest history as a lonely island acquired by traders of the East India Co., follow its journey from a struggling fortified town into a crowded, cosmopolitan, trading centre, then to its place at the heart of 19th century developments that transformed Bombay into British India’s ‘first city’, and, finally, to area’s unique post-independence challenges and changes in identity.

On the way, we meet and hear from diarists, novelists and poets who share their experiences of the city now known as Mumbai, in their own voice, as only they can! From Eunice D'souza to Rudyard Kipling, Salman Rushdie to Arun Kolatkar, Kala Ghoda’s triangle to the Bombay crow, Bombay then to Mumbai now, walk with me and the many words written on, and in, this city by the sea.

Start: Gateway of India

End: Oval Maidan

Alisha Sadikot uses walking tours as a tool to instigate closer looking and creative, critical public engagement with Mumbai's urban histories, art and museum collections. She believes Mumbai is so much more interesting outside of cars and off the main roads - wouldn't you agree?