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While Mumbai moves at super sonic speed with little time to remember the markers of its heritage, Samin Patel, 29, pursuing a DPhil at University of Oxford , has set up a website that documents just that. The website Bombaywalla. org tells tales of Bombay that Mumbai may be forgetting.

Q. How did Bombaywalla. org come about? A. The idea of doing something digital with my city as the focus had been germinating for a while and first took the form of a blog. I wanted to share the findings of my Ph D research and make Mumbaikars aware of the architectural richness around them.

Q. How do you source and autheticate information?. I use the findings from my archival research to generate the textual content for Bombaywalla. We are a team of four. Hersh Acharya and DJ Murty take the photographs and Sitanshu Shukla helps with design and branding. We live in various parts of the world and co- ordinate via email and WhatsApp, I visit Bombay most frequently.

Q. What’s next for Bombaywalla. org? A. So far we have covered established places, we will soon move focus to pop- up structures, stages, pandals even paan dukaans. These have a short life yet are integral to the city’s identity. We get over 100,000 hits a month . Q. Do you ever see a little bit of Mumbai in Oxford or vice versa? A. Yes! South Bombay and the centre of Oxford are both small places, where you bump into acquaintances wherever you go. Small worlds in otherwise big places.

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