This picture shows you, what used to be the grand Watson’s Hotel in Bombay. This ghost of a building known today as Esplanade Mansion, quietly awaits its fate in the Fort area of Mumbai. But before its sad demise, the hotel saw many glittering days and equally glittering people. In 1896, an American author and satirist came to India. He had made much money in … Continue reading

Big cities are full of secrets, and Mumbai is no exception. Tucked-away in the city’s myriad neighbourhoods there are moss-covered graveyards, abandoned railway stations, paved-over rivers and secret underground bunkers and tunnels. Just in the last ten years, four different underground spaces have been discovered in South Mumbai. And they’re all right under where the old British fort once stood. Why are they there?

Before Madras became Chennai in 1996, Madrasapattinam had to become Madras. How did this historic city begin? The story of Madras began in 1644 with Fort St. George. The British East India Company had been around since the 1600s and was aggressively expanding its business in the East Indies which included present day Eastern India and South East Asia. Securing land for ports at strategic

For centuries, European sailors who travelled through the Bay of Bengal talked about a mysterious city that they called the Seven Pagodas. Marco Polo mentioned the city in his accounts of Asia, saying that the pagodas were so large he could see them from a great distance away. He even put the city down on his world map. Above: Eight pages of the original 1375