31 July,2026 10:20 AM IST | Mumbai | Rajendra B. Aklekar
Pic/Sayyed Sameer Abedi
By profession, Kunal Tripathi is a deputy engineer with the Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport. Beyond his official responsibilities, however, he has been quietly building one of India's largest digital archives dedicated to Mumbai's history.
Through his social media initiative MumbaiHeritage, Tripathi has spent more than a decade documenting the city's forgotten landmarks, untold stories, and fading memories, inspiring hundreds of thousands from every generation to see Mumbai through a different lens.
It did not begin in a museum or an archive, but on the streets of Mumbai. "My journey began in 2013. During my work and personal travels across the city, I started discovering places I had never heard of, despite being a Mumbaikar. Sardar Griha near Crawford Market was the spark. It is the historic building where Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak spent his final days before his passing in 1920.
The fact that such a significant landmark remained largely unknown to the public drove me to document unknown yet important places. If such an important place could remain hidden in plain sight, how many more stories were waiting to be discovered? That question became the foundation of Mumbai Heritage," he told mid-day.
"And what followed was a slow, self-driven excavation of a city's historical places in ordinary locations, such as guesthouses, fountains, post boxes, and cinema halls, and stations," he added. What began as a hobby soon evolved into a mission to reconnect citizens with Mumbai's rich and overlooked past. Tripathi started authenticating and sharing photographs, historical facts, and little-known anecdotes on social media while researching little-known stories through old books, archival records, vintage maps, and newspaper reports.
In an era when fleeting trends dominate social media, MumbaiHeritage stands apart. Over the years, it has now become synonymous with authentic and engaging storytelling, evolving into one of the country's largest history-focused digital platforms, with a community of more than four lakh followers on X, around 50,000 on Instagram, and over 20,000 on Facebook.
