Sir J.J. School of Art Heritage Campus

Set back from the traffic of Dr. Dadabhai Naoroji Road, a short walk north of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus, the Sir J.J.

• School of Art occupies one of the quietest pieces of ground in Fort.
• It was founded in 1857 with an endowment from the Parsi merchant-philanthropist Sir Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy, which makes it one of the oldest art schools in India.
• The campus still reads like a Victorian garden college dropped into the middle of a working city: low studio blocks in dark basalt and brick, pointed arches and stone verandahs, tall north-facing windows, and a canopy of enormous banyans whose aerial roots have thickened into pillars of their own.
• Step through the gate and the sound level drops by half.
• The architecture is the plain, sturdy end of Bombay's nineteenth-century Gothic, built for good light and long working hours rather than for display, with deep eaves and carved stone detail of the kind the school's own students and craftsmen were trained to execute.
• Standing among the trees is the bungalow long associated with John Lockwood Kipling, who came out to teach architectural sculpture here in the 1860s; his son Rudyard Kipling was born on the campus in December 1865.
• The building has been restored in recent years and its use has changed more than once, so treat any plan to see the interior as something to confirm locally rather than assume.
• The school's later reputation rests on its alumni, several of whom went on to shape modern Indian painting after Independence.
• This is a functioning college, not a ticketed monument, and that is the whole character of a visit.
• Students carry stretched canvases across the lawns, plaster casts sit under the verandahs, and the place is at its best on a weekday morning when the light comes sideways through the banyans.
• Ask politely at the gate, stay out of studios and classrooms unless you are invited, and photograph the buildings and trees rather than people at work.
• The annual student exhibition, usually held early in the year, is the one reliable occasion when the public is actively welcomed in.
• For food, the surrounding Fort, Dhobi Talao and Kalbadevi lanes are one of Mumbai's strongest areas for vegetarian eating, though these are mixed streets and it is worth reading the board before you sit down.
• Udupi-style canteens here do idli, medu vada, rava dosa and filter coffee at student prices; Gujarati and Marwari dining halls further north serve unlimited thalis at fixed lunch hours; and the snack counters near Crawford Market are known for falooda, kulfi, milkshakes and grilled sandwiches.
• Many of these kitchens are fully vegetarian and plenty of neighbouring ones are not, so ask at the counter to confirm before ordering.
• Roadside chai, vada pav and batata bhajiya carts along Dr. D.N.
• Road cover a quick, inexpensive break between buildings.