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I find my fingers instinctively unlocking my phone to call for a taxi even before I’ve left the building. When inside, I open my laptop hoping to get some work done, speak to that one friend who I’ve been promising to call back or maybe just scroll through my Instagram feed. There is no time to just sit and look around anymore. Our hurried lives don’t allow us to step out and explore. How do we unexpectedly come across something new if we know exactly where we’re headed?
What good would aimlessly walking around do, you may ask. My answer to that is simple - stories. Each crevice engraved in a historic structure has a tale to tell, and every person you walk past has had a life full of adventures. All you need to do to be privy to this magic is take some time out to just walk around without any agendas. Also, one of the best ways to get to know your city and its heritage is by exploring its streets on foot. Keeping this in mind, we at Homegrown have put together a list of tours that will leave you knowing truck loads more about the history about the city you love in a matter of a few hours.
I. Khaki Tours
Going beyond Irani cafés an Koli heritage, Khaki tours helps you acquaint yourself with lesser known historic aspects of Mumbai’s diverse cultural heritage. With the goal of popularising ‘untold stories of Mumbai’, founder Bharat Gothoskar paints a never-seen-before picture of the city through his walking tours. From urban safaris to food walks and city tours, Khaki Tours has a little something for everybody.
In cities like Mumbai which have been standing strong for over a century, there is history to be found in the unlikeliest of places. For Simin Patel, these hidden histories have become a lifelong fascination. Her curated heritage walks that were launched at the beginning of November. They are a unique look at the everyday sights of the city and the social world within these historical buildings. “We use archival visual sources, quotes from early press reviews and promotional literature published by the establishment to relive the experience of purchasing a ticket from the booking office of the Royal Opera House in 1916,” Simin tells us. This is not your average guided tour, this is a full-blown interactive experience.
For more details about their upcoming tours, check out their Facebook page.
III. Mumbai Magic
Through the narrow lanes of bustling bazaars, past khau galls with the pungent scent of spices filling the air and on trails reminiscent of Mumbai’s historic past - Mumbai Magic offers peepholes into the past that a tailor made to your interests. From a wide range of walks and tours to choose from, it is unlikely that you’d come back disappointed They function all days of the week and have interesting additions to their tours depending on the time of the year.
Click here for more information.
IV. Beyond Bombay
“Wonderfully different. Mumbai is a potpourri of sounds, smells and colours – mesmerising, exciting and exotic all at once. Beyond Bombay opens this city to you in all its splendid glory with our array of interest/ area specific, concept based walks and tours,” reads their website. Landmarking, Bookworming, Thali Tripping, Gallery Hopping, Rasta Shopping, Wandering in Worli, Lanes of Lalbaug, Bylanes of Bandra, and The Bombay Plague Walk are some of the tours they offer.
Their first tour actually began when a gentleman who had spent six days in Mumbai, wanted to do something absolutely out of the ordinary with his wife in tow. “We decided to wake them up at 5AM, so we could take him on a tour of the city waking up. Since it was our first tour, we decided it would be free of cost. All we wanted was an honest review,” recalls founder Harshvardhan Tanwar.
They offer a ‘Free Guided Tour’ around Mumbai’s popular heritage, along with guides who have amazing stories to tell. The other, is the ‘Five Senses Tour’ which allows a tourist to partake in five amazing experiences around Mumbai, helping them truly gauge what Mumbai is.
From Bollywood dancing and a walk through the spice market to a Konkan lunch and a heritage walk, they’ve managed to capture every essence of the cultural potpourri that is Mumbai. As for the local guides? They comprise of individuals from multiple sectors, tied together by their passion for sharing stories about Mumbai.
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