Meet Me in Mumbai: Reading My Way Into a City Before I Ever Arrive
Before I go anywhere new, I have this little ritual — I read fiction set in the place I’m headed. It’s my way of slipping into the soul of a city before my feet ever touch its ground. Stories give me a dreamy, rose‑tinted preview of what to expect, and honestly, they make the anticipation feel like its own kind of adventure.
And now… we’re planning a trip to Mumbai.
I’ve been practicing my Hindi on Mango and Duolingo (slowly, lovingly, chaotically), but the real spark came from finishing Meet Me in Bombay by Jenny Ashcroft. I devoured it. I was swept away. I was in love with love by the end — all its forms, all its contradictions, all its quiet devastations and loud joys.
The book opens on New Year’s Eve, 1913, with Madeline Bright stepping into the heat and color of colonial Bombay. She’s homesick, overwhelmed, and unsure — until she meets Luke Devereaux at the stroke of midnight. From there, Bombay becomes more than a backdrop. It becomes a character. A witness. A keeper of promises.
As I read, I kept thinking: I want to see the places they saw. I want to stand where their love stood.
So here are the real Mumbai places I’m adding to our itinerary — places that echo the world of Maddy and Luke, places where fiction and reality blur in the most beautiful way.
The Taj Mahal Palace Hotel — Colaba
If there is one place that feels like it stepped straight out of the novel, it’s the Taj Mahal Palace. Opened in 1903, it would have been a glittering landmark in Maddy and Luke’s Bombay — a symbol of luxury, modernity, and the city’s growing cosmopolitan identity.
In the book, Bombay is described with this sense of awe, as if every corner is shimmering with possibility. The Taj embodies that. Its grand façade, its sweeping Arabian Sea views, its history soaked into every tile — it’s the kind of place where you can imagine a young couple stealing glances across a ballroom.
When we visit, I want to sit in the Sea Lounge, sip chai, and imagine the world of 1913 unfolding just outside the window.
Gateway of India — Where Arrivals and Departures Collide
The Gateway of India wasn’t completed until 1924, but the harbor it stands on was already a bustling point of arrival in Maddy’s time. Ships from England would have docked nearby, carrying newcomers like her into the heat, noise, and promise of Bombay.
Standing there today, watching ferries bob on the water, I know I’ll think about Luke leaving for war — how departures can feel like heartbreak and hope at the same time. The book captures that ache so well. The idea that love can stretch across continents, across danger, across years.
This spot feels like the perfect place to honor that.
Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (formerly Victoria Terminus)
This iconic Gothic railway station was already the beating heart of Bombay in 1913. Its soaring arches and stained glass would have been familiar sights to Maddy and Luke — a place of movement, of possibility, of stories beginning and ending.
In real life, CST is chaotic and beautiful in equal measure. Trains screeching, vendors calling out, people rushing in every direction. It’s the kind of place where you feel the pulse of the city under your feet.
I want to stand there and imagine the quieter version they knew — the one filled with steam engines and handwritten tickets and the soft hum of a city on the rise.
Marine Drive — The Queen’s Necklace
Marine Drive wasn’t built until the 1920s, but the coastline it hugs has always been a place where Bombay meets the sea. In the book, the ocean is a constant presence — a reminder of distance, of longing, of the world beyond.
Today, Marine Drive glitters at night like a necklace of lights. It’s a place for lovers, dreamers, wanderers. A place to sit with someone you love and let the waves do the talking.
I can already picture us there, breathing in the salty air, letting the city wrap around us.
Byculla & Colaba — Neighborhoods With Colonial Echoes
Much of the novel’s setting — the bungalows, the clubs, the social circles — would have been in areas like Byculla, Malabar Hill, and Colaba, where British families lived during the Raj.
Walking these neighborhoods today, you still find remnants of that era: old stone buildings, leafy lanes, churches with stained glass, and clubs that once hosted dances and soirées. They’re quieter now, but the bones of history remain.
I want to wander slowly, imagining Maddy’s world layered beneath the modern one.
Love in All Its Forms
What stayed with me most from Meet Me in Bombay wasn’t just the romance — though that was breathtaking — but the tapestry of love woven through the story:
Love for a place that becomes home
Love between parent and child
Love of friendship
Love of passion
Love of reason
Love of love itself
Mumbai feels like the perfect city to explore all of that. It’s messy and vibrant and full of heart. It’s a place where millions of stories collide every day. A place where love — in all its forms — is always unfolding.
And now, because of this book, I feel like I’m already connected to it.
As We Get Ready to Go…
I’m carrying Maddy and Luke with me. Their hope. Their heartbreak. Their promise to meet again in Bombay.
And maybe that’s why I love reading fiction before traveling — it lets me fall in love with a place before I ever arrive. It gives me a story to step into, a lens to see through, a heart already half‑open.
Mumbai, we’re coming for you. And I can’t wait to meet you — in all your history, all your chaos, all your beauty, all your love.
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