Malabar Hill , the long, steep-sided promontory enfolding Chowpatty Beach at the north end of Back Bay, is Mumbai's ritziest neighbourhood. Since the eighteenth century, its lush forests, fresh sea breezes and panoramic views have made the hill an attractive location for the grand mansions and bungalows of the city's merchants and governors. These days however, high-rise, high-rent apartment blocks have squeezed out all but a handful of the old colonial buildings to make way for Mumbai's "new money" set - the in-crowd of politicians, millionaires, film stars and gangsters who flit across the glossy pages and gossip columns of India's popular magazines. Somehow, though, a few jaded remnants of the city's past have managed to weather the changes.

 

Before heading up the hill from the busy roundabout at the far end of Chowpatty Beach, make a short diversion through the narrow backlanes to Balbunath Mandir , one of Mumbai's most important Hindu temples. You'll have no trouble finding the entrance: just look for the melee of stray cattle and flower-sellers that forms here around puja times. The building itself, a clumsy modern agglomeration of towers, turquoise arches and staircases, makes a much less interesting spectacle than the stream of pujaris (priests) and pilgrims on the greasy stone steps leading to it.