When I was a child returning from boarding school, we would wake on the overnight train from the north to find ourselves rumbling through the northern reaches of the ghats, somewhere near Igatpuri. Already the air felt and smelt different. It was warmer and moister, with something of the sea. As time passed and our home town drew nearer, our excitement grew. Exclaiming at familiar things we had not seen for so long, coconut palms, creeks with fishermen in dugouts, triangular sails in the waterways. Then at last we would enter the suburbs of the city (in those days Bombay hardly extended beyond Santa Cruz, Borivili was somewhere out in the wilds), names on the stations flying past, Andheri, Ville Parle, Santa Cruz, Khar, Sion – where the marshes smelt like a giant drain – glimpses of black and yellow taxis and red buses, in the streets the usual congestion and confusion, the promise of kulfi soon at the Brittannia, or a chicken tikka and naan at the Sher-e-Panjab. And after the joy of being collected by one's parents at VT (Victoria Terminus), there was the car ride through familiar streets, almost always turning into Marine Drive, and suddenly there was the sea, usually grey in a dazzling haze, attended by its own peculiar scents. It was the greatest pleasure to come back to our smelly, chaotic city and no matter how many times I leave it, I am always glad to return.

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