The year was 1946. At the time, suburban Mumbai was sprawling and verdant. Mud tracks served as roads and watermelons grew on the patch of land that has now been transformed into a smooth, concrete runway from which planes take off into unseen and unknown worlds.

"The watermelons that grew on our land were talked about a lot because they were so big you could eat it from side-to-side," recalls Valencia Misquita, while flattening a crease on her salmon pink tunic as she sits across us on a curvy teak chair at a table adorned with a lacey vintage tablecloth inside Mumbai's first standalone East Indian restaurant.