He’s not the one—no, that guy is known to be notorious,” warns Col Dr BB Kulkarni. The ‘guy’ he refers to is a large white horse with a penchant for misbehaving with the cow ward staff at Parel’s Bai Sakarbai Dinshaw Petit Hospital for Animals. The beast we’ve been eagerly waiting for is Sultan, a celebrity resident of the hospital who arrived 15 years ago. As the brown and black horse surveys his kingdom, Chief Medical Superintendent Col Kulkarni tells us, “Sultan was first brought here because of an injured hoof and joint. He never left, because where will a chronically injured horse go in a city like Mumbai?” Fittingly, a carved bust of Sakarbai—wife of textile mills owner Dinshaw Maneckji Petit, after whom the hospital is named—hung over the entrance of the main office, too, features a gallant-looking horse. 

The expansive cow ward was built to meet the needs of the 19th century