In a city that’s always in a hurry — its citizens often seen chopping vegetables on the local train commute — Sunday offers an excuse to slow down. A trip will be made to the market; seafood or meat will be haggled over; and the aroma of a slow-cooked curry will waft through the afternoon breeze, demanding a bellyful of siesta. This is the curry-laced memory that culinary chronicler and consultant Rushina Munshaw Ghildiyal has of Sundays in Mumbai. “Since childhood, curry has been a source of comfort. My mother whipped up a special coconut curry. We’d often have dhansak at my father’s Parsi friend’s house. So, that became a Sunday curry association,” she reminisces. A house help’s Maharashtrian curry, and a sampling of curries by East Indian, Bohri, and Koli colleagues further spiced up her nostalgic longing for the comfort food, she adds.

This October, Ghildiyal, along with travel curators No Footprints, will celebrate the essence of curries, communities and Sundays. Titled The Mumbai Sunday Curry Project, the initiative will comprise four Saturday cook-along sessions, where Ghildiyal will dive into Mumbai’s melting pot of cultures, one curry at a time. Harshvardhan Tanwar, co-founder, No Footprints, reveals that the idea is rooted in the quest to learn the history of the myriad communities that call Mumbai home. “While growing up, I was introduced to a host of fare from different communities — be it salli marghi or Bohri curry — through the tiffin boxes of my schoolmates. Once I started working in this field, I realised how historically and culturally important the food was,” he  adds.