Explore bungalows, bylanes and birdwatch

It was in the mid-1800s that the bungalow typography gained popularity in Mumbai. By the 1960s and 70s, land prices boomed, families sold their ancestral homes and low-rise apartment blocks took their place. Today, even they have had to give way to glass-and-steel monoliths across the city. Bandra though is a veritable time machine. There, Indo-Portuguese-style bungalows with wooden porches, slatted windows and unkempt gardens take you back to what the city must have looked like a few centuries ago.
To slip into this time warp, register for one of two heritage walks during the Times Celebrate Bandra festival. These leisurely morning strolls, led by interior designer and Bandra resident Conrad Gonsalves, will cover the 500-year-old St Andrew’s Church, a typical East Indian gaothan, a fishing village, Mount Mary Church and end with a breakfast of “kheema pav” at a popular Bandra eatery. “We’ll talk about how housing in gaothans got modified to accommodate changes in family structure, and how they were located away from flood zones but close to fields,” says Gonsalves. As for St Andrew’s Church, Gonsalves explains that it was originally located at the BEST bus depot near Bandra station. “It got destroyed and surviving artefacts like the cross were moved to the current location,” he says.
Those more interested in the city’s natural history, can sign up forbird watching tours or tree walks. There’s a good chance that avid birdwatchers will spy Bandra locals like paradise flycatchers, lesser drangos, golden orioles, and magpies. Closer to the coast, one might see migratory visitors like godwits, sandpipers, sand plovers, and redshanks. While the hour-long bird watching trip will be conducted by “budding ornithologists”, says organizer Suyog Shet, the tree walk will be led by a biology professor in Almeida Park, which has “80 different plant and trees species”.
Anthony Abraham, the curator and founder of the Collage Collective at Bazaar Road, will lead a walk that will bust myths about Bandra being only the home of East Indians and Anglo-Indians. “The 1.5km Bazaar Road stretch, established in the late 1700s, houses seven ethnic communities including Bohris, Khojas, Marwaris, Gujaratis, Bengalis, East Indians and Maharashtrians,” he says. “We’re going to talk about how the people have learned to co-exist because the communities are dependent on each other economically, ” he adds.