Homestay, heart, and the hues of Mumbai - World News Network

Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], October 3 (ANI): The story of Adore Homes begins not with glamour but with grit, not in a palace but on a terrace. Nishant Jadhwani, a restless boy from Thane who once hawked deodorants and chocolates to keep pace with his South Mumbai classmates, found himself living in a Bandra flat that drained his bank account faster than it filled his spirit. He had dressed it up beautifully, invested more than he could afford in interiors, only to realize he had no money left for rent. And so, on the urging of a friend, he did something desperate and ingenious: he listed the room on Airbnb and moved himself out onto the terrace. A guest from South Korea booked within 24 hours. The terrace became a bed, the flat became a business, and the business became a philosophy. Out of scarcity, he discovered style. Out of survival, he built scale.
Adore Homes today is a constellation of stories scattered across Bandra — 15 properties, over 7,000 guests, and occupancy rates that make seasoned hoteliers blink. But the story isn’t really about numbers. It is about neighborhoods. It is about concrete walls and collapsing ceilings, eccentric bathrooms and borrowed beds, red-tiled kitchens and book-lined ceilings. Above all, it is about people who transformed hospitality from transaction into theatre.
Nishant is the restless dreamer. His partner, Varun Patel, the actor with the steady hand, has been his brother in building — from their first property, the Bandra Cottage with Yard, with its eccentric bathroom and rare lawn in Chimbai, to the Japanese-inspired City Zen, born from the glimmer of a Chinese restaurant lamp outside a window that triggered memories of Tokyo. Together they prowled Chor Bazaar, IKEA, Khar’s markets, and designed homes from scraps and sparks, turning thrift into chic, improvisation into imagination.
But empire-building is never solo work. It demands trust, and trust came in the form of others who joined their orbit. Nicole, the globe-trotting model, was given free rein over the Bandra Art House — a leap of faith that proved delegation could be destiny. And then came the Poetry Pad, Nishant’s masterpiece of madness, where crematorium wood and discarded books became the raw material for a ceiling of literature, a house centered around a tree and 2,000 volumes. Born of scarcity, it became a sanctuary for dreamers.
Holding all this together is Ajay Mane, the ballast and backbone, the professional who ensures the chaos becomes choreography. Ajay grew up in Andheri East, studied at Rizvi College of Hotel Management, and passed through the entire spectrum of India’s hospitality: from Goa’s Zanzibar restaurant to the GVK Lounge at Mumbai airport serving first-class passengers, from the precision of Port, a fine-dining Italian restaurant, to the tumult of a nightclub in Peninsula Redpine. Where others saw jobs, Ajay gathered lessons: patience from nightlife, polish from fine dining, precision from aviation. Now he runs Adore’s operations with the calm competence of someone who has seen storms before. He is the one who ensures the Wi-Fi works, the codes are sent, the guests are comforted before they even articulate a need. If Nishant is the dreamer and Varun the partner, Ajay is the anchor.
And then there is Vraj Makwana — the wild card, the wonder, the Chief Happiness Manager. Vraj came from Akola at eighteen, chasing the mirage of Mumbai with the heart of an actor and the soul of a singer. What he found at Adore was not a stage but something stranger: a role that no app can replicate, no algorithm can automate. Vraj is the guide, the greeter, the giver of joy. He is the guests’ companion through the city’s veins: a personal party guide, a shopping guide, a city sherpa who saves them money and shows them Mumbai as a local sees it. Where others check guests in, Vraj checks on their happiness. His personality orbits around generosity, so selfless that Nishant once joked even Mahatma Gandhi would envy his spirit. He ensures that there is always laughter in the room, always music in the air, always reason to remember Mumbai not just as a place you visited but as a city that embraced you.
And this is the genius of Adore. Each property is more than a flat. It is a story stitched into Bandra’s fabric. Ajay likes to welcome guests to the Peaceful Oasis, a fifty-year-old Bandra apartment restored with trees and greenery all around, “a modern yet neo cottage” that feels as though it belongs as much in Spain or Japan as in Chimbai. “Welcome, it’s your host and your dost,” he writes, and the words capture the spirit: this is not a corporate concierge, it is a friend waiting at the door. In another home, Nishant greets guests with, “Om Shanti, Om,” promising that the Zen Pad will return them to their childhood, free them of worries, give them a slice of stillness in a city of chaos. And in yet another property, the Sea-Facing Trance apartments in Chimbai, he reminds them that they are stepping into history, a fishermen’s village reborn as Bandra’s beating heart, with the sea at their window and Carter Road three minutes away. Even the codes and Wi-Fi passwords are part of the performance: BOOKDIRECTLY@10%OFF, checkout@10am, sly winks folded into hospitality.
These homes are not sterile sanctuaries but soulful stages. They are not about perfection but about presence. A cracked ceiling becomes a chapter. A scam becomes a story. A borrowed bed becomes a metaphor. And always, there is someone to make sure the spirit of the place stays alive: Ajay with his steady hand, Vraj with his infectious smile, Varun with his eye for detail, Nishant with his restless daring.
In a world weary of excess, these homes whisper the possibility of correction. After decades of tourism defined by waste and want, travelers crave essence. They want to belong to the city they visit, if only for a night. They want to sleep not only in a place but in its pulse. In Berlin you might stay in a reclaimed warehouse. In Brooklyn, a brownstone. In Zurich, an experimental hostel. In Bandra, it is Adore Homes that gives you this intimacy: Catholic neighbors who gossip across balconies, shopkeepers who remember your poster purchases, joggers who wave without knowing why. These are not listed in the amenities but they are the true luxuries — the luxuries of locality.
Adore is not merely a business. It is a metaphor. It says to the world: the future of travel is not in erasing difference but in embracing it. The future of hospitality is not in uniformity but in uniqueness. To stay at an Adore home is to be reminded that comfort and discomfort can co-exist, that beauty often emerges from cracks, that the people on the other side of the divide are as fragile, as beautiful, as precious as we are. Correction begins with connection, and connection begins with seeing.
Nishant never set out to build an empire. He only wanted to pay his rent. But with Varun by his side, with Ajay as his anchor, with Vraj as his emissary of joy, he has built something larger: a new grammar of hospitality, a global vision expressed through local lanes, a model for a planet aching for thoughtful tourism. The homes are not polished pearls; they are rough diamonds, jagged and gleaming, as alive as the city they inhabit.
And so the boy from Thane who once slept on a terrace now invites the world to sleep in Bandra’s stories. Check in for a night, and you may just check in to a new way of seeing the city — and perhaps, the world. (ANI/ Suvir Saran)
Disclaimer: Suvir Saran is a Masterchef, Author, Hospitality Consultant And Educator. The views expressed in this article are his own.

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