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With its old parquet floors, spiral staircases, wrought
iron loggias, and exquisite marble statues of forgotten
city fathers, the colonnaded Town Hall is perhaps the
most regal and elegant of Mumbai's heritage buildings.
It houses the Asiatic Society, a library with a collection
of 800,000 antique volumes. One of them is a priceless
first edition copy of Dante's "Inferno." There is also
an impressive numismatic collection of over 1,000 ancient
coins and a rare gold mohur belonging to the Mughal Emperor
Akbar. You need permission to look at these treasures,
but the public library is open to all and usually draws
a large number of senior citizens who pore over the local
newspapers in the fading grandeur of its reading room.
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