First comes the steady scrape of a ladle in a wide pan, where milk, ghee and sugar are stirred for hours until they turn into kunda, the caramel-brown sweet behind the nickname Kunda Nagari. Inside the moated fort, the noise drops away at Kamal Basti, a Jain temple whose ceiling opens like a carved stone lotus.
Beyond the fort, the tree-lined roads of Camp keep their old churches, and Ganesh pandals fill the streets in late summer. High near the Western Ghats, the city stays fairly mild, with heavy monsoon rain from June to September and cool winter nights. A Local Friend can open doors you would not have knocked on, from a family sweet counter to a quiet courtyard.
