"The first thing I do when I go back," says the New York-based actress and cookbook author Madhur Jaffrey, "is head for Chowpatty Beach, order a coconut, stick in a straw, and drink. Then I know I'm home."

Surfside coconut vendors are not as plentiful as they once were, when Chowpatty was Bombay's answer to Coney Island. On this crescent of sand on Back Bay, in the heart of the city, children would ride tiny, hand-cranked Ferris wheels and families would cluster at stalls selling bhelpuri (puffed rice, fried noodles, and vegetables in a mint, chili, and tamarind sauce), while malish wallahs (masseurs) offered mustard-oil rubdowns on the beach.

Over the past few years, however, conservative officials began a cleanup at Chowpatty, forcing out most of the rides and snack vendors. It's a relatively sedate scene today. Still, some find more covert forms of amusement. Young couples steal off to Chowpatty on their lunch hour to rent tentlike shelters on the beach, under which they, as one newspaper put it, "let their love blossom." (Authorities were shocked—shocked!—to learn of this unsettling trend, and promised to crack down immediately.)