First you hear the local train, wheels clattering as commuters pour onto the platform. Then come the dabbawalas, calling to each other as they pass along stacks of tiffin boxes. By sunset the sound turns to waves slapping the sea wall along Marine Drive, where half the city comes for the breeze.
Past the Gothic towers of Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, the city runs north through Bandra's shopping streets to the leopard forests of Sanjay Gandhi National Park. It stays warm all year, dry from October to May and soaked by monsoon rains from June to September. A Local Friend can open doors you would not have knocked on, like a family kitchen or a corner no guidebook mentions.
