As I looked for Boombay: From Precincts to Sprawl, Kamu Iyer's deep-dive into the growth of the city, on my bookshelf, I noticed that it sat beside Santa Cruz That Was, a priceless documentation on the historic suburb by the late city chronicler Teresa Albuquerque. Whether that was serendipitous, I'm not sure, but it got me thinking even more about the loss of another heritage keeper of the city.

Iyer's passing is an irreparable loss to the architecture fraternity. His in-depth analysis had stitched, for so many of his ilk, present and future, the link between the city's glorious past and its present challenges. The latter was astutely validated by the great Charles Correa in the foreword he wrote for this book – '[reading through this book will] provide us with clues on how to reverse the grave (perhaps terminal) blunders we are currently making.' For journalists like yours truly, who track the heritage and urban planning beats, his inputs are worth their weight in gold.