About Meowmbai

Last updated: 20 October 2026

What is Meowmbai?

Meowmbai helps residents document the community cats who share their neighbourhoods. Each approved photo sighting becomes part of a public map, giving every documented cat a profile and helping people understand where cats live, who looks after them, and when a cat may need help.

Indian cities have thousands of community cats - on compound walls, inside dhabbas, behind markets, on every quiet lane. They've been here longer than most of us. Meowmbai is an attempt to notice them.

What we're building

A community-powered record of community cat populations - starting in Mumbai and now growing across other Indian cities. Not a rescue operation. Not an animal welfare database. Just documentation - names, faces, neighbourhoods, stories. The kind of thing someone might find years from now and say: this cat was here.

How it works

Anyone can upload a photo of a cat they've spotted in a live city. You give them a name if you know one, drop a pin, pick a vibe. The cat joins that city's map. The next person who spots them can add a sighting. Over time, a picture of neighbourhood cat populations builds up, city by city.

How to explore community cats

Explore the live map to find documented cats by city and neighbourhood, open a cat’s profile to follow repeat sightings, or browse recent and trending posts. The map currently includes community-submitted records from Mumbai and other participating Indian cities, and it grows whenever residents add verified sightings.

Open the interactive cat map or see recent sightings.

How to contribute

If you see a community cat, upload a clear photo with its location. Meowmbai moderates submissions before they appear publicly. You can also report a missing cat, flag a welfare concern, or learn about responsible feeding and trap-neuter-return.

Document a cat sighting or report a missing cat.

Offline events in Mumbai

Meowmbai's community also meets in person in Mumbai. See photos from the meetups.

Scope and safety

Meowmbai is a documentation project, not an animal rescue or emergency service, and its records are not an exhaustive census. For an injured animal or urgent danger, contact a local veterinarian or animal-welfare organisation first.

What we are not

We are not an animal welfare or rescue organisation.
We do not track individual cats in real time.
We do not verify cat identities or guarantee that any cat is still at any location.
We are not affiliated with any government or municipal body.

Who built this

Meowmbai was built by Sudarshan, a product manager in Mumbai who noticed there were too many remarkable cats and not enough places to put them.

The name

Meowmbai. Mumbai. Cats. It was always going to be called this.

Mumbai belongs to the cats.

Always has. We're just writing it down.