Some columns are slow starters. Others begin with a bang, then peak or plateau. This one, initially ho-hum, had me dismayed. Even loyal residents of the north-east precinct of Mumbai which was one of 1720s' Bombay's eight villages, said, "Why Wadala? It only has good schools." Wadala could appear a bit barren. Yet, scratch the prosaic mosaic of bus terminus, staff quarters and crumbling barracks, wind up Antop Hill and the landscape leavens to charismatic cemetery and tomb spaces suffused with love and light.

The Shaikh Misri Dargah at Wadala