Crawford Market (Mahatma Jyotiba Phule Mandai)

This market was completed in 1869 and named after Arthur Crawford, Bombay's first municipal commissioner. Crawford wanted to move the sale of food off the city's filthy streets and into a clean, airy market hall. It was designed by the British architect William Emerson, who blended Victorian Gothic with local elements. Its official name today is Mahatma Jyotiba Phule Mandai, honouring the social reformer who fought the caste system and campaigned for girls' education.

1The Kipling signature

Look up at the entrance. The reliefs of Indian farmers at work were designed by John Lockwood Kipling, a teacher at the Sir J. J. School of Art a few minutes from here. His son Rudyard, author of The Jungle Book, was born in Bombay in 1865. Lockwood left the city before finishing the third panel. Inside there is a fountain that is also usually attributed to his design.

2A market of firsts

According to the building's history, in 1882 it became the first in India to be lit by electricity. Until 1996 it was the city's great wholesale fruit market; after that, the wholesalers moved to Navi Mumbai. It is still full of stalls selling fruit, spices, dried fruit, toys and household goods. Part of the market is being renovated, so check which sections are open.

A Victorian market where people still haggle in half a dozen languages.

3What to look for

• Kipling's reliefs above the main entrance.
• The clock tower, visible all along the street.
• Badshah, opposite, the falooda counter that is more than a century old.