Markets have a way of drawing me in. The weekend Chatuchak market in Bangkok. The Sunday bird market in Porto, Portugal. The morning market on Nusa Penida — a small island off the coast of Bali.

No matter how big or small, each market has a way of unlocking that particular place for me, letting me get to its very heart as I witness the local community coming together.

And so it is that on a recent trip to Mumbai, I find myself waking with the sun to catch the Dadar flower market at its busiest. Although it is open all day, the market’s peak hours are 4 a.m. to 9 a.m. — shortly after the night’s deliveries have been unloaded.

I have barely left Dadar station when the sidewalks begin to overflow with flowers — vendors already fashioning their purchases from the market into bouquets and garlands, leading me toward the source like breadcrumbs on a trail. My steps quicken as the scent of jasmine blossoms grows.

Just outside the covered portion of the 720-stall market, I meet Surin and Suresh, seated on overturned crates behind their wares. They are both from Mumbai and have worked in the flower business for nearly 20 years. “This is our ancestors’ business, so we are doing it too.”

They point out bright-green tulsi leaves to me, explaining that they are used for “medicine and puja,” or special Hindu ceremonies. It isn’t until I get home and look up tulsi that I learn it is also known as holy basil, which explained why the market was so redolent of it.

Next, Suresh holds up tightly furled, brilliantly red hibiscus, or jaswand — the flower favored by Ganesha, the elephantheaded Hindu deity.

Already the early wake-up call feels worth it, to find familiar plants now rendered exotic by new names and uses. But my fascination continues in the center of the market. Each lane is no wider than five feet and is lined with stalls. Stacks of blue crates stagger toward the ceiling. Marigolds in vivid shades of saffron and cadmium yellow spill over the sides of round woven baskets.

It is impossible to avoid being in someone’s way. The minute I move aside for a man bearing a bag of roses on his head, I am pushed aside by two more, swinging plastic sacks of dark pink asters and more of those striking marigolds over their shoulders. The market is a kaleidoscope of colors and commerce, forever spinning and shifting its shape.

So for just a moment, I step outside of it all, sitting on the only empty table to let the frenzy pass me by. I chat with more vendors and listen to others chanting “Pila, pila, pila,” (Hindi for “yellow”), while they refill their baskets of marigolds.

My connection with the market grows in stages — a single conversation here, a single observation there — until I feel myself becoming a part of it.

Just before leaving, I spot a group of men threading coral-pink rose petals around individual jasmine buds, one after another until their creations hang three feet long. Garlands are ubiquitous across India, and not just in temples. They hang from the sides of telephone poles and above doorways as an offering to the gods or simply to honor the memory of an ancestor.

I will never look at a garland the same way again, after having first seen them as simply a ball of thread and a bundle of blossoms. I realize, too, that I will also never look at Mumbai the same way — at the tiny corner of this city of 20 million people that has been unlocked to me this morning.

Markets are the hub and hive of a city, a chance to see it in the raw — to trace where your last meal came from, or where that pashmina scarf you bought on the street might have originated. You no longer take as much for granted.

As I begin walking back to Dadar station, I recall what a silk vendor said to me in the Mangaldas fabric market two days earlier: “It will take you at least one year to cover all the markets in Mumbai. Even I could not count them today.”

He may be right, but with visions of fragrant garlands still dancing in my mind, I know that my morning in the flower market was the perfect place to start.