Bollywood Tourism

At Chor Bazaar (Marketplace of Thieves), the legend goes, you could park your car for 10 minutes as you stepped out to shop and return to find everything from the hubcaps to the tyres and steering wheel missing.

Helpful lads would offer to sell you replacements that looked startlingly familiar. You could haggle to bring the price down, but it was understood that you would have to pay. After all, what were you thinking leaving anything you care for unattended here?!!!

Chor Bazaar has since moved on from used car parts to… well, everything. And it’s not stolen any more. Just counterfeit. You can get antique furniture here, or lookalike antique furniture, junk jewellery and souvenirs, CDs, copycat Gucci bags and fake Chanel No 5.

Actually, for the fake Chanel, try Manish Market near VT station. You’ll get it for much less.

Then walk to Crawford Market, a heritage building that is now almost 200 years old and could be gone in a few years, replaced by a high-rise that will house the fourth- and fifth-generation traders that still sell flowers, fruit, meat and fish here.

If it’s authentic handicrafts and hand-woven carpets you’re after, check out the Jammu & Kashmir Emporium, the World Trade Centre at Cuffe Parade or the Central Cottage Industries Emporium (Apollo Bunder) and Khadi Village Industries Emporium (D N Road).

The khadi emporium, out of respect for Mahatma Gandhi and his hand in the resurgence of this homespun material, has a permanent exhibit dedicated to him: a pair of spectacles, slipper and a wooden spinning wheel used by the Mahatma.

While the prices are fixed in the emporiums, have no such qualms when you hit the streets. And hit the streets you must. Whether you’re looking for junk jewellery, clothes or shoes, make sure you head to Linking Road (Bandra) or Fashion Street (Dhobi Talao) once your sightseeing is done.

Ignore the plate-glass shop windows and pound the pavements here for the most amazing bargains you are ever likely to see.

Shoes cost as little as Rs 130; tops can be got for Rs 100 apiece; shorts, skirts and pants for under Rs 300. Eager store owners will prattle non-stop to try and prevent you from remembering these facts, so repeat them in your head before you step in.

The prices will start, of course, at Rs 1,200 or something equally absurd. But bargaining is part of the deal, a source of much mirth an entertainment to store owner and customer alike.

One good trick is to make like you’re walking to the next store in disdain. Keep an ear out for the plummeting rates as the eager vendor calls out desperately after you.

Feel no guilt. He bought those shoes for no more than Rs 30.