In contemporary India, large numbers of Muslims tend to be segregated into ghettoes. Even when this is not the case, the study of Muslims is often stalked by a ghetto mentality reflected in thematic choices made by the researcher. Can consideration of everyday aspirations enable a shift away from this ghetto mentality? Or does the ghetto reassert itself as effect, beyond its spatiality, in a wider culture of suspicion that marks the relationship with the other in an urban milieu? This article ponders whether there is a way out of the ghetto for Muslims. I consider this through a reflexive narrative of my personal experience of conducting research among Shi‘a Muslims in Mumbai. I reflect upon whether the paradoxical dynamic between keeping at a distance yet reaching out is intrinsic to any ethnographic research or acquires a distinct edge when conducting research among Muslims in urban India.