The most important thing, I realised, was not about making money, or getting ahead, or seeing your face on a hoarding; it was about adapting and remembering to breathe.

Her knowledge of the city was horribly scanty; her geography, even worse. Now, having been there and back, Tishani Doshi affirms that Mumbai is not just a vertical metropolis, but also has the capacity for the circular due to its remarkable propensity for coincidences...

For many years, it was my special private pleasure to tell Mumbaikars that I’d never visited their city before. I loved to watch the involuntary reaction which started somewhere in their gut, travelled all the way to the surprised arch in their brow, and manifested itself in an utterly bewildered, ‘Really?’ from their sophisticated city lips.

After savouring their look of mystification, I would begin to tell them my story. It wasn’t that I harboured any particular prejudice toward their city. It wasn’t as though I hadn’t been plotting elaborate trips for years, but every time I did plan something, things went horribly and predictably awry. A few months ago, my luck finally changed. Seized by an abnormally mad determination, I found myself standing in the Jet Airways’ queue from Chennai to Mumbai with a mixture of impending joy and foreboding. I don’t think I even winced when the lady told me, that, for no fault of mine, but for a multiplicity of inexplicable reasons, the ticket I was carrying was invalid, and that under no circumstances would I be allowed to board the flight. (Did I imagine it, or was her nose turned up when she said the word ‘Apex’?) At that point, I wondered if I should bother to scream, kick and be generally uncharitable, or resign myself to a fate that seemed hell-bent on relegating Mumbai as a city to be experienced only in my imagination.

Luckily for me, I was feeling particularly zesty and vigorous that day; so I invented a convoluted story about a twin sister’s wedding in Holland, an assortment of dire unpleasant consequences if I should miss this or any further connecting flight and threatened (I’m ashamed to say) big, fat, crocodile tears – all of which were worthwhile tactics because I soon found myself snazzily business-classing my way into Mumbai!

Tishani Doshi is a freelance writer based in Chennai. She is currently working on her first novel and a biography of Sri Lankan spin king, Muthiah Muralidharan. She also works as a dancer with the famed choreographer, Chandralekha.