Colaba Market

This guide to Colaba Market in Mumbai starts with two centuries in which Colaba could only be reached by boat, and the overcrowded, capsizing ferries that pushed the British East India Company to act in the 1830s. It follows the causeway built under Sir Robert Grant across Old Woman's Island, laid down purely to stop drownings and move troops, and the vendors and trams that slowly claimed the road for themselves. Leopold Cafe had already opened on the corner by 1871. Look for the Victorian stonework still rising above the market stalls.