3 Days in Mumbai — Essential Highlights

Frederick William Stevens' 1888 Victorian Gothic masterpiece: 7 million passengers per day under carved grotesques, tracery and the figure of Progress on the dome.

Reality Tours: the leather tanneries, pottery kilns and plastics recycling of Dharavi — not poverty tourism but an explanation of how this extraordinary micro-economy functions. 80% of tour profits to local schools.

The seafront promenade past celebrity mansions: the cable-stayed Sea Link from the headland, the Arabian Sea and the suburb where Bollywood stars live.

Potato dumpling in a bread roll with dried garlic chutney: the single food that defines Mumbai more than any other. At any of the 10,000 carts across the city.

The oldest flea market in Mumbai: 150 shops selling the beautiful detritus of 200 years of cosmopolitan Bombay life. The Art Deco apartment furniture alone is worth the visit.

The world's largest outdoor laundry: the rhythm of cloth beaten on stone, the mosaic of colored fabric drying on thousands of lines.

A Hindi film in its home city: the mandatory 15-minute interval for samosas and chai, the crowd reactions, the item songs. No subtitles needed for the emotions.