THE HANGING GARDENS, located on the top of Bombay’s Malabar Hill, is a pleasant park in which to pass time in a relaxing way. We spent an enjoyable hour and a half sitting on a bench in the shade one Sunday morning.

After leaving our seat, my wife wanted to see if something that she remembered from her childhood in the 1950s still existed. After leaving the Gardens and crossing a road, we entered another park, the Kamala Nehru Park, which contains a children’s play area. And it was here that we found the thing my wife recalled: a giant boot. Children can enter the boot through a door in it, and then climb up an internal staircase to reach a viewing platform at the top of the boot. The boot reminds one of the story of the old woman who lived in a shoe.

My wife used to be taken to play in the shoe by her grandmother who lived nearby in Walkeshwar Road. My wife remembered the boot as having been painted pink, but since then it has been repainted and is no longer that colour.