Once upon a time in Adalaj

THE CITY OF DREAMS as seen from heaven

“The first thing I noticed about Bombay, on that first day, was the smell of the different air…I know now that it is the sweet, sweating smell of hope, which is opposite of hate; and it is the sour, stifled smell of greed, which is the opposite of love. It is the smell of gods, demons, empires and civilisations in resurrection and decay…It smells of heartbreak and the struggle to live and of the crucial failures and love that produce our courage. It smells of ten thousand restaurants, five thousand temples, shrines, churches and mosques and of a hundred bazaars devoted exclusively to perfumes, spices, incense and freshly cut flowers,” says Gregory David Roberts in the opening pages of his book