New Delhi, Aug. 28 -- In 1950, Gulzar arrived in Mumbai. The 16-year-old had been put on the Frontier Mail from Delhi with strict instructions not to get off the train before he reached his destination. A day later, he remembers in Aamchi Mumbai, a new volume of poems and stories about the city, destiny deposited him at Bombay Central.

"From that moment on," he writes, "this city held me by the hand-and became my partner." It frightened him, admonished him, made him run around in circles, but "it never dropped me from its lap." He has slept with his head on its shoulder. He has heard "the lullabies of its footpaths." He has tasted the salt of its sea. "What all has it not given me?" A home, a wife, children, dreams, a livelihood. This bo...