The 1950s and '60s were a time to travel, Australian scholar James Cosmas Masselos writes in an essay. But while most of his friends were moving to Europe, to create their own version of the grand European dream, Masselos says his "path stopped at Bombay".

A young researcher in his early 20s then, he had been awarded a commonwealth scholarship—first to be nominated from Australia—by the Indian government to Pursue a PhD in history at St Xavier's College, University of Bombay (later Mumbai). "Bombay was... for me, long strips of roadways, barely illuminated by the sporadic sprinkle of naked electric lights on streetside huts," he shares of the first snatches he saw of the city, after he had landed. Little did he know, that he'd go on to become its indefatigable chronicler. A new book, Bombay Before Mumbai (Penguin Random House), edited by academicians Prashant Kidambi, Manjiri Kamat and Rachel Dwyer, honours the pioneering researcher and his work on the city, with a collection of essays contributed by 14 scholars from across the world.