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You can pick up gooey posters of Bollywood film stars, small Hindi film posters and technicolour representations of Hindu gods for next to nothing from street stall vendors along MG Rd between the National Gallery of Modern Art and the old Watson's Hotel, and under the arcades of Dr D Naoroji Rd.
The Khadi Village Industries Emporium, has a handicraft section that stocks half-metre-tall neon orange statues of Sai Baba. The Oberoi Shopping Centre at The Oberoi hotel, has a wonderful store solely devoted to selling Ganeshas. Mansoori, a tiny store off Mutton St in Chor Bazaar, has an array of graphic 'erotic' paintings that it better hope the Shiv Sena never sees.
You can pick up colourfully threaded mosque caps in Bhendi Bazaar all the gear you need to conduct your own puja from a galli (alley) off Panjarpole Rd in Bhuleshwar and hand-sten-cils for mehindi patterns from a street stall outside Cafe Churchill on Colaba Causeway.
It's always worth a browse among the books and occasional boxes of LPs under the cluttered arcades of Dr D Naoroji Rd - anyone for a 30-year-old long player of the speeches of JFK ? The Nalanda bookshop in the Taj Mahal Hotel sells old post-cards of Bombay that will make you realise you've spent most of your stay walking on land reclaimed from the sea.
If you need to wash Mumbai's pollution off your skin, Argentina at No 3 Khatau Mansion, Bhulabhai Desai Rd has an Ayurvedic skin care lotion made from berberry, red sandalwood, fenugreek, lodh- ra bark and almond oil that should do the trick.
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