Most of us take our senses for granted, at least until one of them stops working. But despite the usefulness of smell, sight, touch and the other senses, they took millions of years to work themselves out. Indeed, many creatures in the tree of life have evolved just fine without eyes or ears, while others have senses we can only imagine. Just the fact that we can see and smell is something of a miracle, and scientists are still learning how they work — and how they work together.
When Shamil Thakrar talks about Bombay, he has a favourite word: palimpsest, “something reused or altered but still bearing visible traces of its earlier form”. In fact, Shamil has been (fondly) banned from using it by his cousin Kavi, with whom he co-founded Dishoom, the hugely successful group of Bombay-inspired restaurants, 15 years ago.
But palimpsest is an apt word to describe Bombay – or Mumbai, as it is known internationally – the port city on India’s west coast, where multicultural influences eternally trickle in without erasing the layers of what came before. Two eras of imperial rule, two waves of Persian migration, a Hindu majority and a large Muslim community, people from every Indian state, language and ethnicity rubbing shoulders with one another, Maharatis, Gujeratis, Punjabis, Goans; 19th-century gothic architecture alongside art deco, neoclassical opposite mid-century, and the onward march of new development along every major road. And it is absolutely its own place, of itself: “Everything has coalesced here and become ‘Bombayified’,” says Shamil, as we wander around Colaba, the southernmost tip of the old city.
For all the robot vacuum cleaners in the world still can’t answer the vital question: what counts as work, and when and how much is a person owed for doing it?