Post haste

The best time to visit the General Post Office (GPO) is on a languorous Sunday morning, when most of Mumbai is still sprawled in bed. Be careful not to dismiss it as a vestige of British rule. Instead, slip in through the gates and marvel at the mighty walls that rise up like battlements made of charcoal, white and sun-coloured stone picked up from quarries in Malad and Kurla. Run your eyes up the length of the Gothic turrets and you will find fine domes crowning them. But the most spectacular dome is the central one, redolent of Bijapur's Gol Gumbaaz.

This hybrid of architectural styles came to be known as Indo-Saracenic, introduced to Mumbai by the Scottish architect John Begg and his assistant, George Wittet. Preeti Chopra, in A Joint Enterprise: Indian Elites and the Making of British Bombay, writes that when young Wittet was first sent to Mumbai in 1904, he was horrified at Begg's stylistic liberties. "Why has Begg gone in for that stuff? Why hasn't he done a good Renaissance building?"

On hearing this, Begg promptly sent Wittet on a fortnight's tour to Bijapur where, according to Begg, the 'best of old work is to be found'. Wittet returned, convinced of the architectural grandeur of Bijapur.

If you visit the GPO on a weekday though, you should climb up the steps for a look inside. Within its cavernous central hall, you will see everyday life unfolding itself. Drifts of people shuffling slowly forward in disorderly queues, employees mired in dusty files, fans whirring noisily, the postmaster stepping into an old-fashioned, ornate lift that slopes slowly upwards—time moves sluggishly here.