This Saturday, sign up for Bandra's Past And Present, a heritage walk that allows you to explore the neighbourhood, and unravel its history from a forgotten time in the fast-changing suburb
A quaint cottage on Chapel Road
As you walk through Bandra's Ranwar Village, one of the original pakhadis or hamlets that make up the suburb, it's easy to travel back to the era when its residents would cultivate rice and coconut in nearby fields or when women, wearing traditional lugras, would stand on wooden balconies of their cottages and indulge in a gossip session. Home to the East Indian community, the settlement, believed to date back to the early 1700s, retains quaint bungalows with red-tiled roofs, lining both sides of the narrow Veronica Street. It's a far cry from the glass and steel structures that dot Hill Road, a few metres away; in fact, if you stop to observe, you might just spot a resident in the traditional East Indian vermillion-hued drape.
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Mount Mary's Basilica
This Saturday, sign up for Bandra's Past And Present, a heritage walk that allows you to explore the neighbourhood, and unravel its history from a forgotten time in the fast-changing suburb. Open to 25 guests, the walk is hosted by Mumbai Riders, a community that conducts city trails and cycle rides, along with The Inheritage Project, founded by Alisha Sadikot. A heritage expert and former curator (education and outreach) at Dr Bhau Daji Lad Mumbai City Museum, she will conduct the two-hour walk.
Alisha Sadikot leading the walk
It starts at Land's End, the southwestern tip of Bandra and ends at Hill Road. Rishi Shah, founder of Mumbai Riders, says, "For this walk [third edition], the stopovers include Bandra Fort, Mount Mary, St Stephen's Church and Chapel Road. The idea is to shed light on the neighbourhood's history and attempts made by resident communities to preserve legacies in the time of rampant development."
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