What are the best tours of Mumbai?

You can find almost anything you want amongst Mumbai's famous bazaars. It is well worth taking a tour of the bazaars of South Mumbai to see the hustle and bustle for yourself. The tour takes you from the historic Crawford Market, through to the spice market, Mangaldas Cloth Market and the Zaveri Bazaar where you can find almost anything in gold. Be sure to remember to take your wallet with you too.

http://www.mumbaimagic.com/mum_baz.htm

Rakhee Gelani
Correspondent, Forbes Travel Guide, Mumbai, India, Asia

Rakhee Gelani is a Forbes Travel Guide Correspondent who is based in Mumbai and covers the city for Startle. A traveler by nature — taking her first overseas trip at the age of 6 months — she has visited 48 countries in the world and still has plenty more on her bucket list. She abandoned a successful corporate career in Australia to backpack across India in 2011 and now calls Mumbai home. She is a travel blogger, writer and business consultant who likes to spend her spare time discovering the best places to wine and dine in Mumbai.

For tourists who want to skip the clichéd tours of Mumbai, culinary walks are an interesting alternative. "Food is one of the most interesting ways of understanding a culture," says Deepa Krishnan of Mumbai Magic, a tour company that organises food walks in the city. "Tourists are increasingly looking for more insightful and interesting experiences than merely visiting monuments."

Bazaar walks and cuisine trails help to showcase some very rich aspects of Indian society. "The Mumbai Magic food walk starts with a guided tour around Matunga market and ends with a cooking demo and tasting of traditional food at an Indian home. While at the market, a culinary expert guides tourists around various food-speciality shops. Even though Matunga isn’t a tourist area, Krishnan chose the market as it has a number of eateries and stores that sell regional ingredients. "Most foreigners have limited knowledge about Indian cuisine and may have only tasted Punjabi fare like butter chicken," she says pointing out how they are surprised that Indian food is not as spicy as they have been led to believe. "Regional food is a pleasant discovery for them."

The package which costs Rs 1,000 per person for a guided tour of six includes a visit to a Gujarati, Parsi, Goan or South Indian home. During the visit, tourists can choose to participate in the cooking process of a traditional meal or sip on some Indian wine and observe the cooking. The demonstrators have been flooded with queries like, "Can we peep into your fridge?" and "Please explain the use of these unfamiliar cooking gadgets," says Krishnan referring to tourists who were curious about metal tongs.

Krishnan also organises food trails in Delhi, Agra, Jaipur, Chennai and Kottayam. In Kerala, the walk includes visits to a private spice plantation, paddy fields and toddy shops and in Jaipur, tourists learn how Rajasthani cuisine has been influenced by the hot climate and scarcity of water.

"Hello and welcome to Mumbai Magic Tour. My name is Priyanka and I am your guide for today," says a perky Priyanka Patil (16), one of the five youngsters from non-governmental organization Akanksha as we start a four-hour journey through the architectural and cultural heritage of Mumbai city. We accompany Michael Corvinia, a tourist from New York, as we see the historical and modern side of the city before returning in the evening.

Meet five teenagers from varying difficult backgrounds. Priyanka, Shiraj Khan, Parveen Ansari, Kavita Pawar, and Sana, who have been trained by Deepa Krishnan of Mumbai Magic Tours to work as guides for foreign tourists. Among the other personalized tours is 'Mumbai Local', an interesting walk around Mumbai's unique nooks and crannies to experience Mumbai's unique culture in all its forms.

"I was super-excited when our Didi at Akanksha told us about this project. She was going to interview us to be tour guides. You were promised a good amount of money around Rs 500-Rs 750 per tour," says Parveen (16), a slim lad in her pavers. Parveen says she loves to shop for clothes and accessories but also understands that she needs to support her family as well.

"I always used to donate some amount of my profit to Akanksha but I thought that was not enough. That's when I got the idea to involve these kids from Akanksha in my project. It introduces them to the local flavour of the city along with local modes of transport and local food, with bright and enthusiastic kids playing guides. As Krishnan fondly says, "Mumbai Local through the eyes of local people."

The voyage begins right here. Bhavan, a scrumptious treat at Swati Snacks, a walk through Ghatkopar's Khau Galli and then finally, a peek into Dhobi Ghat.

It's all about learning for the children. Every tour teaches the little Mumbaikar different situations, at times not easy tourists and learn from their mistakes. Shiraj (19), a first-year engineering student, admits.

"On my first tour I forgot to carry the handouts and script. But thankfully because the tourists were not aware of it I managed my show well." In tight situations, of course, Deepa 'Didi' is only a phone call away.

Narrating another incident, Priyanka says cheekily: "While on a heritage walk tour, we were being constantly harassed by street vendors and lending clients. They wanted to visit Chor Bazaar and Haji Ali that were not part of the itinerary."

They were also adamant about buying bangles and clothes for their children, none of whom had joined the tour but were also academically well qualified.

Akanksha has identified such children and has channelised them into social works and local leadership.

"It has been great to see how this whole process, which is so novel and enthusiastic, works out," says Michael who loves to travel and get a good sense of the city's vibes. "It's good to see the Mumbai Local tour in the hands of children, who have channelized their latent talent and managed this job." At the end of the tour, one earns invariably many benefits. Krishnan said: "After all, everybody in the game must get something out of it."

There are tour operators galore cashing in on the travel boom to our photogenic country, but few have taken up the formidable challenge of ensuring clients a tourism-rich experience. Filter Coffee Tours hopes to make a difference with services that help well-heeled international visitors experience the subcontinent’s colour and complexity, minus the customary hiccups.

Back in 2004, Zuleika Nazneen, an HR professional and Deepa Krishnan, a banking consultant, formed a company to offer customised tours for business travellers to Chennai. They realised they had a niche market as overseas clients — with a weekend or evenings to spare — turned to them for advice on local must-sees and places to go gift-shopping for friends and family back home. Soon they began catering to other high-end travellers looking for premium tours in the chaotic metro.

Hardly anyone in the business sees the city as little more than a gateway to the real tourist spots which lie further afield. But Zuleika, who requisitions vehicles from her husband’s travel agency, successfully hunts for new places of interest — as a counterpoint to the not-to-be-missed ancient temples of Chennai. And Deepa recently created Mumbai Magic. Both entrepreneurs are conceptualising creative tours that afford quiet moments of discovery in metros where the frenetic pace of life can unsettle the uninitiated visitor.

Mumbai Magic

Mumbai offers a kaleidoscope of experiences for anyone who is willing to venture into the narrow and crowded alleys of the city’s various marketplaces. “But my clients will always get more than an offbeat shopping experience even at places like Chor Bazaar,” says Deepa. This tour of the “thieves market” begins at Mutton Street, which is flanked by antique shops selling cuckoo clocks, gramophones and other bric-a-brac. Further, every side-street has its speciality product — perfumes, kebabs and what have you.

The guides have been specially trained to point out aspects that visitors would otherwise miss out — the neighbourhood mosque with the marzipan colours, the pastel shades the Bohri Muslim women dress in as opposed to black burqas, and other minutiae that make the place distinctive. Even as they walk away with decent bargains, the visitors get a quick primer on Islam as it is practised in that corner of the city.

Woven into every tour narrative is the story of how Mumbai became this bustling cosmopolitan city from its humble beginnings as a fishing village. The cultural diversity is evident in everyday lives. Besides, the city’s calendar is full of festivals, many of which involve exuberant public celebrations.

And there are other finds. In the winter months, Mumbai is home to half a million birds, a fact which even long-time residents are unaware of. Flamingos, a good quarter-lakh of them, make their colourful appearance in Sewri Bay tucked away amidst tall buildings, slums, and open dumping grounds.

On your feet

Tours for smaller groups — less than six people— include bazaar walks, heritage district walks and boat tours, minus car service costs. The Cuisine Tour, a special treat for foodies, is new on the menu. A Cricket Tour is also on the cards in both Mumbai and Chennai.

Deepa and Zuleika pay their multilingual guides — five in Mumbai and three in Chennai — handsomely. They also promote responsible tourism and try to ensure that some of the money generated trickles into the neighbourhood. By engaging locals in their business, they get invaluable “insider” information as well.

On the whole one wonders if it is easier to sell Mumbai, which also gets a greater share of international visitors. Chennai does have a reputation of being a staid city, says the bubbly Zuleika, but visitors delight in everything it has to offer. “For many of them shopping for silks in Usman Road, buying trinkets on the sidewalks in Pondy Bazaar or just crossing the roads becomes an adventure,” she adds.

But there is more. The truly daring can go on a catamaran ride at dawn. These boats are nothing more than logs of wood tied together and used by fishermen all along the Coromandel coast. Filter Coffee Tours also takes groups to watch kol am (flour-based painting) contests in Mylapore, a suburb which is even older than the city it is now a part of.

Living traditions

Those who appreciate our culture will also consider commemorative cultural festivals to be significant. Maharashtra's Ganesh Chaturthi, celebrated in its various forms, is a grand spectacle. One can catch the Visarjan, the immersion of idols in the sea, during the last day of the festival. Another is the Navratri festival, the colorful and joyous celebrations that take place in October. These celebrations have religious significance and offer a glimpse into India's rich cultural heritage.

During the tour, visitors are encouraged to explore the local flavor of the city along with local modes of transport and local food, with bright and enthusiastic kids playing guides. As Krishnan fondly says, "Mumbai Local through the eyes of local people."

Most of us have enough trouble coping with the demands of one job. But some people manage to juggle two careers-often in very different fields. C. Sujit Chandra Kumar meets five enterprising people who have cashed in thus on their talents.

Deepa Krishnan often carries an additional pair of shoes in her bag. When the banking consultant has a corporate appointment, she puts on a pair of black high heels. But slips quickly into a pair of sneakers if she has to accompany a group of foreign tourists as part of her tourism business.

Juggling two careers is no big deal, says Krishnan, an MBA from Indian Institute of Management, IIM (Calcutta). Perhaps because she loves experimenting. One year into her first job with a cosmetic giant, she chucked it up to float a software company along with her husband (an IIM batch-mate) and another couple.

Later, when she moved to Chennai with her family, she launched Filter Coffee Tours even while she was pursuing her globetrotting career as a banking consultant.

The Idea for the tour struck her when she took her international corporate guests around Chennai. Each time she couldn?t answer a question, she would read up on Indian history and architecture. It was then that she sensed a business opportunity. “We talk a lot about our culture but do nothing to promote it”, she says.

She hired a group of guides and sent out emails to her vast network of friends. “The response was tremendous because the market did not have any such service”, she recalls. When she and her husband moved to Mumbai, she was determined to replicate her business in the city – and hold her job as banking consultant.

For six months, she researched, hired guides and conceptualized the aspects of Mumbai she wanted to show the world. And the company called Mumbai Magic was born. The company specializes in customized tours and offbeat walks and Krishnan says, “My aim is to have insightful tours”.

There are walks through Chor Bazaar and Dharavi (Rs,1,350 per person) and her mind is brimming with other offbeat ideas. If she can get hold of the right guides, there will soon be a cricket walk and an art walk.

Have a few hours to spare in Mumbai? Go on a walking tour with Deepa Krishnan

Deepa Krishnan organises walks. So what, you ask? Well, she doesn’t organise any old walk – she puts together walking tours that lets you see a facet of Mumbai you just may not have had the opportunity to see.

“I am about six months old in Mumbai and a year-and-a-half in Chennai,” says Deepa, an IIM (C) graduate who caught the travel bug recently. As of now, she does two group tours that take visitors around the markets of South Mumbai – Crawford Market and Chor Bazaar.

These tours, designed primarily for foreigners and other business visitors who don’t see more than just the business district of Mumbai, are conducted on Saturdays and can be booked by corporates too.

“I keep the groups small and as of now do just these tours as group tours. But for individuals I have a couple of fun tours that can be booked personally. One is the Fisherman’s Wharf tour in the fishing village in Cuffe Parade,” says Deepa.

Describing a recent trip, Deepa says she even got recipes out of the Marathi fisherwomen. “The charm of my tours is that they are customised to the clients’ needs and give you exactly what will interest you, that too in the time frame that you decide,” says Deepa.

Other tours that Deepa’s website (www.mumbaimagic.com) lists are a day in Mumbai, which takes the whole day, and another that does a tour of Mumbai only in the evening.

“I charge a nominal amount for my services because I have trained guides who speak four different languages. I take clients to places they will most probably miss on their business tours and I tailor-make tours according to specifications,” adds Deepa.

A new walk helps tourists discover Mumbai's beauty through its bazaars, says Chetna Mahadik.

Mumbai often leaves tourists befuddled. It doesn’t have centuries-old tombs scattered around like Delhi. It doesn’t have lovely beaches that beckon them to shed their clothes and jump into the water like Goa. Nor does the city count nostalgia like Kolkata. It has its crumbling, stately mansions and trudging trams. At first instance, it seems there is little for them to explore beyond Gateway of India and Banganga Tank.

Yet, what makes Mumbai so compelling, despite the lack of tombs, clean beaches and tramscars is its ravenous enterprise. Nothing is wasted here – not even crumbling currency notes or old shoes that shoemakers will refuse to touch often. The city is home to money-changers who buy unusable notes for a little less than their face value, turn them to the Reserve Bank of India and offer the foreign tourist the money back. This unique spirit of enterprise, Deepa Krishnan and her Mumbai Magic tour company has begun conducting walks through the city’s bazaars every Saturday.

The company had been conducting the walks on request since last year. But since January, Krishnan has begun conducting regular walks through the antique market of Chor Bazaar and the markets around Bhuleshwar. We took a walk through Bhuleshwar with Krishnan and her guide Sandhya Merchant to rediscover the district.

The walk aims to open your eyes to the many small markets that thrive in the maze of Bhuleshwar. We were thrilled to discover Mirchi Galli, which opened into Sheikh Menon Street and is filled with spice shops. Later, we found a narrow lane through Zaveri Bazaar opening into the enormous Moolji Jetha Wholesale Cloth Market. Here, cloth merchants lounged on white mattresses and pillows, negotiating the price of cotton rolls – 1,000 metres at a time – over steaming cups of tea. We also realised where all those obscure items required for elaborate Hindu poojas come from. A market hidden behind the Mumba Devi Temple sells them all, from vermillion to the bark of a mango tree, jowar grains, and even cow-dung cakes of different grades (you can save a few rupees if you accept cow-dung adulterated with mud). There are also shops selling red langots worn by priests, and a tailor who custom makes it for them.

Krishnan and Merchant go beyond throwing light only on the history and the architecture of the neighbourhood. Instead, they use history and architecture to explain the contemporary context of the markets. Under the shadow of the many-domed Jama Masjid, they dip into the history of the city’s Konkani Muslim community, which patronises the mosque. Ambling through Zaveri Bazaar, they point out Tribhuvandas Bhimji Zaveri’s shop and note that it was the first jewellery shop to get air conditioning (in 1957), to hire saleswomen and to exchange old ornaments for new ones across the counter if customers paid the difference. At Mumbadevi Temple, they point out an engraving on the temple’s silver gates of the little-known goddess Bahucharji – an avatar of Parvati who rides a cockerel and is venerated by eunuchs. At the old, dilapidated Bhuleshwar Temple – the Shiva temple from which the area gets it name – they explain the architectural principles that guide the construction of Hindu temples.

Krishnan is not averse to entertaining unusual requests from tourists. Once, she recalled, a European tourist wanted help to find a bead market. His fiancée back home had commanded him to come back with thousands of variously coloured glass beads from a bead market in Bhuleshwar she had heard of. Krishnan joined him in the search and they found exactly what he wanted in the warren of Bhuleshwar.

However, such exclusive attention doesn’t come cheap. Priced at US $30 or Rs 1,350, the walks target foreign tourists. But then, as Krishnan pointed out, Mumbaikars don’t need guides to explore these markets. They only have to go shopping.

You can smell the thick, saline sea breeze and picture vast open, untouched land as Deepa Krishnan takes you on a picture-book tour of Mumbai. Krishnan, an Indian Institute of Management-Calcutta graduate and consultant with Barclays decided to start her own tour company two years ago. Playing de facto guide to many a corporate head honcho while working in Chennai, led to the realisation that she was sitting on a goldmine. And thus the genesis of Filter Coffee Tours in Chennai.

However, notes on the by lanes of Zaveri Bazaar replaced jottings on Mylapore when she returned back to Mumbai in October 2006.

Juggling two careers is no big deal, says Krishnan, an MBA from Indian Institute of Management, IIM (Calcutta). Perhaps because she loves experimenting. One year into her first job with a cosmetic giant, she chucked it up to float a software company along with her husband (an IIM batch-mate) and another couple.

As you watch her wax eloquent on the history of the quaint fishing village-turned-commercial capital, you know exactly why Mumbai Magic Tours has played guide to over 80 overseas big wigs over the last three months alone.

But in a city where sight seeing tours are a dime a dozen, it's Krishnan's emphasis on giving clients a ‘quality' experience that is the differentiator. Priced at Rs 8,000 per person for a half-day trip and Rs 10,000 for a day's outing, Krishnan limits the intake to a maximum of three per trip. “As we pass through the city I hand out pamphlets which trace the history of the area we are passing,” says Krishnan motioning towards a tastefully designed handout. The picture of a Koli draws one's attention to the bulleted account of the fishing community's origin.

A believer in constant innovation, Krishnan's tours comprise not just historical accounts but experiences of unique cultural strands. “I recently took a client to a traditional naming ceremony in the Cuffe Parade fishing village. He was completely taken up by the experience,” says Krishnan.

And to ward off boredom and irritation during endless traffic snarls, the Mumbai Magic treasure chest is a history lesson in itself. Put together by Krishnan during one of her trips to the Dadar market, the large, zardozi lined box houses batwas of varying sizes. “It's through this case that I explain to them the traditional jewellery worn by Indian women,” says Krishnan pointing to the trinkets in a green silk batwa. And for the tourist looking to differentiate the married woman from the spinsters there's a batwa filled with toe rings, the sindoor and green glass bangles.

“You need to be able to engage all your client's senses, to hold their attention,” says Krishnan who will soon introduce an audio element to the tours. She recently sourced a CD of traditional dhobi music to be played on a trip to the city's dhobi ghats.

With a team of tour guides, each fluent in German and Spanish, and a network of transport and refreshment agents well in place, Krishnan says that the fear of failure didn't cross her mind. “Each tour pays for itself so there is no question of making a loss,” she says. And she matter-of-factly lets us in on another trade secret. “You need to pay your driver a little more than the market standard, similarly with your tour guide; and your client needs to feel that he's got value for money.” She adds, “For your business to succeed, it's important that all players are happy.”

And client responses are testament to the success of the formula. “Your knowledge and enthusiasm combined with people's hospitality have made me a huge fan of Mumbai,” says an American banker in an email. While the UK-based consultant who witnessed a traditional naming ceremony says: “It was a fantastic experience, particularly as I had the opportunity to attend a child's naming ceremony at the village.”

But Krishnan's not resting on her laurels and has planned new packages for the New Year. A tour of the city's gully cricket hangouts, a trip to the city's flamingo belt and tours in Pune, Bangalore and Mysore are on the anvil. “There's so much to look at around the city. You just have to find the magic.”

Krishnan (second from left) with some of her clients at the Gateway of India

FANTASTIC FEASTS

Savouring ‘South Indian’ Staples In Mumbai’s Matunga Area

A food-oriented walk in a storied neighbourhood gets you up-close with soulful South Indian meals, corner stores brimming with snacks, and a colourful vegetable market.

Clutching a silver medallion token, I wait my turn in the payasam-scented passageway of Matunga’s 76-year-old Udipi Shri Krishna Boarding. Having missed a meal on a guided walk earlier, I’ve come again to have a taste. From the Nilkamal chair I’m seated in, a softboard catches my eye. Pinned on it are yellowing newspaper cuttings; advisories enlisting such familiar gems like ‘Don’t loosen your belt after a meal,’ and a handwritten letter by Mohit and Gargi (presumably a couple and regulars) stating how much they’ll miss the establishment once they move to Goa.

Twenty minutes before lunchtime ends, I’m finally guided to a table under a whirring fan. It’s a modest diner, so hygienic that even “The Owner of this Restaurant Eats Here,” a placard inside tells me. The frenzy is hard to miss. A battery of servers are frenetically dispensing thalis, balancing them on their muscular forearms like circus jugglers.

“Vaazhai ilai” one white-aproned waiter mutters and Santosh swiftly spreads a banana leaf. I ignore the sambar for the nut-brown, runny rasam. Seasoned with chilli, pepper, and cumin, its pungency instantly unlocks my palate. But it’s the seasonal maanga kozhambu (raw mango curry) I devour, scooping out the mustard seed-speckled, sweetish tangy orange gravy cradling between the leaf’s green veins. Santosh’s smiling refills help. For Rs 200, the thali is unlimited but the dessert isn’t. So I opt for a bowl of gooey paruppu payasam. Cooked and cooked in coconut milk, with jaggery, ghee, and chana dal, it’s star-dusted with cardamom and irresistibly aromatic when arrives. It tastes better than it smells. Within seconds I scrape the tiny steel bowl Vim-bar-commercial-level sparkling clean.

The payasam serves as a perfect closure to a soulful Udipi meal in a place that has fed state governors.

For an unpretentious South Indian meal, Shri Krishna is where Deepa Krishnan ends her food tours in Matunga. The neighbourhood came to be settled by mainly South Indians and Gujaratis in the aftermath of the plague that hit Bombay in 1896, forcing many to either move northwards or flee.

The communities gel well, Deepa, an affable Palakkad Iyer, offers, as we amble past the last remaining art deco buildings in the locality she was raised in and is a resident of. “Because they’re vegetarians?” I prod. “Oh, they won’t even look at eggs!” she affirms, laughing. “Good luck buying them here. But cross the circle and every living thing is edible.” (Dadar Parsi Colony is a stone’s throw away). “That café there was a no man’s land,” Deepa says, pointing to Koolar Café. The 90-year-old eatery, which found footage in the Irrfan Khan starrer Lunchbox, is amongst the few to take the cudgel of preserving Bombay’s Irani café culture, doling out piping hot brun maska, fluffy minced chicken omelettes and a rainbow of saccharine-rich pastries. Back in the day, she says in jest, Koolar is where the “bad boys of Tamil folks went to break food taboos.”

The two-hour tour, designed by Mumbai Magic, a walk-focused tour company Deepa founded in 2007, extends beyond food sampling though. For Rs1,000, participants are brought up to speed with nuggets on the area’s gentrification, temple tales, and corner stores overflowing with snacks you find yourself rummaging for in your South Indian friend’s kitchen.

Your olfactory receptors unfalteringly guide you to Mysore Concerns, a coffee shop where residents from distant suburbs flock on weekends. “This is the umbilical cord that draws many from as far as Thane and Goregaon to Matunga,” Deepa fills me in, waving out to a burly, moustachioed man behind the counter we’re now approaching.

He keeps a steel filter and some coffee beans ready for Deepa to break into a dry demo of how filter coffee, “the secret of every self-respecting Tamil household,” is concocted. Once she’s through, I inch closer to the table where the action is: Three workers are busy loading the beans in a giant red grinder, emptying the powder into thigh-high steel barrels, and then filling the freshly crushed—still blissfully warm—mix into packets of quarter kilo (Rs110) and half kilo (Rs220). Of the 300 kilos ground daily, more than 50 per cent is sold the same day.

After fielding requests from staff for photos my colleague has just clicked, we walk out. I smell like Coffee Bite, or that kid who’s just finished frolicking in a roastery.

It’s at the popular Café Madras, five minutes down the kerb, that we squeeze in at a community table for filter coffee. The server meets my expectation, delivering the café’s star performer theatrically. Stretching both his arms to the maximum, he pours the liquid from one steel cup to another, fully aware that he is being watched. After five months of no caffeine, I savour the dense, bitter-sweet brew like a shot of comforting Bailey’s.

Inching closer to the railway station, past gypsies peddling walnuts and jamuns in frankincense-fumed baskets, we make multiple pit stops. Of them, Annapurneshwari is noteworthy. It’s from where Deepa stocks Palakkad-manufactured tapioca poppadum and other snacks. I pick up a tapioca pack (Rs70) to try later, and parade through the goodies on the bulb-lit counter. There is murukku (deep-fried savoury snack made with rice), sharkara upperi (fried raw plantain dipped in a jaggery solution and dusted with dried ginger) and neiappam (ghee-fried golden nuggets made with rice, jaggery, banana, and cardamom). Murukku is something I had tried a little while ago from another store, Mahalaxmi. The size of my palm, the snack’s tight swirls were crisp and yet soft enough to bite into.

By the time we hit the main bazaar, it’s cacophonous with calls of hawkers, including mogra-wearing Tamil ladies, selling coconuts, cannonball-sized white and yellow pumpkins, and bananas in at least 20 shades of green. Piles of moringa leaves, or the “new kale” as Deepa says, are another mainstay here. “Moringa has become a superfood now but we’ve been cooking it for generations,” considers Deepa as we walk towards the covered area of the market. On our way in, she shares her pati’s (grandmother’s) recipe of murungai-elai-adai, a dosa-like snack made from a batter of rice powder, water, salt, and flavoured with fresh moringa leaves.

Inside, many wholesale banana shops have been replaced with those selling hosiery and hair pins. “It’s transitioning into a Ladies Market,” Deepa smiles, guiding us to a shop chock-full of chips. I pick banana and jackfruit. The crispy goodies are polished off by colleagues over two days. Sogginess? Zero!

Two nights later, I fry the tapioca poppadum at home. The chequered papad goes gorgeously well with a Kerala-style fish curry just as it did with Shri Krishna’s maanga kozhambu.