Stories beget stories. This is ringingly true of Shormistha Mukherjee’s hot-from-the-oven Pudding — an anthology on Bandra, by Bandra, but for Bandra and far beyond. Lovingly baked layer upon layer with insightful perspectives and delightful first-person narratives centred on the history of the growth of the tiny seaside hamlets that collectively created the Queen of the Suburbs, the first of this annual volume is out next week. 

Sitting between stories of joy and loss, Pudding organically flows from media professional Mukherjee’s Memory Keepers of Bandra series on Substack. Realising there are several residents (like her) who set up home here later in life, Mukherjee takes care to have different essays describe why this suburb is a place where everyone feels they somehow fit in. “I want this book to be something they read as well, and sort of grow roots with,” she says.