Shri Dwarkadhish (Sunderbagh) Haveli Temple

Tucked into a lane off Kalbadevi Road in the dense old-market quarter of South Mumbai, the Shri Dwarkadhish Haveli at Sunderbagh is widely held to be the city's oldest surviving haveli-style Krishna temple.

• It is generally recorded as having been dedicated to Dwarkanathji — Krishna as the lord of Dwarka — in 1875 by the merchant Sunderdas Mulji Jetha, of the trading family whose name still hangs over one of Mumbai's great cloth markets a few streets away.
• The temple belongs to the Pushtimarg tradition founded by Shri Vallabhacharya, and its form follows that tradition faithfully.
• A Pushtimarg haveli is not a temple in the tower-and-spire sense; it is a mansion, laid out like the home of a beloved child-god rather than a monument to a distant deity.
• There is no soaring shikhara here.
• Instead a tall street facade opens onto an inner courtyard and a carved wooden nij mandir, and the day unfolds as a sequence of darshan slots in which the curtains are drawn back, the deity is bathed, dressed, offered food and finally put to rest to the sound of kirtan.
• What makes Sunderbagh unforgettable is the facade itself: a riot of carved fruit, foliage, birds and scampering monkeys that has earned the building its affectionate local nickname, the monkey temple.
• Visiting takes a little patience, because the haveli closes between darshan slots and the timings shift with the season and the festival calendar — check locally on the day rather than assuming fixed hours.
• Remove footwear at the entrance, dress modestly, keep phones put away, and ask before photographing anything inside, as many havelis do not permit it.
• Janmashtami and the autumn Annakut, when a mountain of vegetarian food is offered to the deity, are the most spectacular days and by far the most crowded.
• On an ordinary weekday morning the courtyard is quiet, cool and startlingly removed from the traffic outside.
• Food is the easiest part of the plan.
• Kalbadevi and neighbouring Bhuleshwar form one of India's great vegetarian eating grounds — a Gujarati, Marwari and Jain merchant quarter where farsan shops, mithai counters and thali houses have fed traders for generations.
• Many kitchens here are vegetarian-only, but Mumbai is also a seafood city, so read the board or ask at the counter before you order rather than assuming.
• A Gujarati thali in Kalbadevi, a plate of khaman or fafda from a farsan shop, or a glass of sugarcane juice on the walk back towards Marine Lines all round off a morning well.