The first bicycle that I owned, the only bicycle that I ever owned, was a BSA that came equipped with a Sturmey Archer gear. Its tri-speed magic cranked up the r.p.h. of the streets so that they raced by, the houses and pedestrians zipping form walk to sprint mode as though someone had suddenly transported them into a length of footage from some silent-era documentary.

I would listen for the chain drive to settle into a purring rhythm, then flick the gear. The stubborn rising curve of the gradient, straining against the gear before yielding to it, would reveal the grave of an old hill, hidden beneath hot asphalt and the many coloured awnings of streetside hawkers. A hill that had commanded a view of the Arabian Sea in the days when Mumbai was still a bracelet of islands, before the reclamation men arrived on the scene with their shovels and their sandbags.