Girgaum Chowpatty

Where Marine Drive's long concrete arc finally runs out of promenade, the pavement gives way to sand and Girgaum Chowpatty opens out — a shallow, north-facing crescent at the top of Back Bay, hemmed by the Arabian Sea on one side and the tenement lanes of Girgaon on the other.

• It is Mumbai's oldest public beach and still its most democratic piece of open ground.
• On any ordinary evening the sand carries office workers unwinding after the commute, families trailing balloon sellers, joggers, courting couples, cricket games marked out with slippers for stumps, and a horizon stacked with the towers climbing Malabar Hill to the west.
• The name is usually traced to the old Marathi words for the four channels or creeks that once drained here, long before reclamation pushed the shoreline outward.
• The beach has served as Bombay's public square for well over a century.
• Nationalist gatherings filled it during the freedom movement, and Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak — whose statue stands near the Chowpatty end — was cremated here in 1920 before enormous crowds.
• The same open sand became the city's principal site for Ganesh visarjan, the immersion that closes Ganesh Chaturthi: for ten days in late summer, processions of drums, cymbals and colour converge on Chowpatty, and on Anant Chaturdashi the largest idols are carried out into the shallows.
• Visiting during the festival is unforgettable, but expect road closures, dense crowds and a night that runs until dawn; go early, travel light and follow the marshals.
• Come on a normal day for the last two hours of daylight.
• The sun sinks into the sea more or less straight ahead, and the curve of Marine Drive lights up behind you as it goes — the reason the sweep has long been nicknamed the Queen's Necklace.
• The water is for wading and photographs rather than swimming: Back Bay takes urban run-off, currents near the outfalls are unpredictable, and there is no lifeguard cover, so treat this as a beach to sit beside.
• Small ferris wheels, balloon-shooting stalls and chai hawkers work the sand at dusk.
• Babulnath Temple stands a short walk inland, and Charni Road station is a ten-minute stroll east.
• Chowpatty's real institution is its chaat.
• The line of stalls along the beach's inland edge has been turning out bhelpuri, sevpuri, panipuri, ragda pattice, pav bhaji and kulfi-falooda for generations, and the tradition on this stretch is a meatless one — but stalls change hands and menus drift, so read the board and confirm before you order.
• Inland, Girgaon and the lanes around Charni Road station are strong ground for Gujarati thalis, Udupi-style idli-dosa counters and Maharashtrian misal, and several kitchens there run pure-veg; ask at the counter rather than assuming.
• Mumbai is a seafood city at large, so anywhere along the coast the safe habit is to check first.
• Carry small notes — many stalls take cash only.