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Tag Archives: Bombay

Ganpati Year Two

Night City

BOMBAY–Rush hour starts late by American standards. At 8 a.m. the traffic is light. At 4 or even 5 in the evening the traffic is insane but light by Bombay standards. 7 p.m. is a madhouse of trucks and horns and motorbikes and rickshaws and trains and buses heading home into the evening.  The city […]

The Coming Storm

MUMBAI—There were drops of rain on the windscreen this morning. The surface of the Sea Link bridge was wet and there were towering grey clouds in the near distance pierced by light grey rays of sunlight. The news tells of rain in the countryside, rain to the east, rain in Sri Lanka. The official start […]

A Moment in Traffic

MUMBAI — I had been out photographing the streets of south Bombay all day.  It is the hot season.  I was tired and on my way home and almost ready to put my camera in its bag.  We stopped at an intersection and I looked over to see a little girl staring at me.  I stared […]

Bring the Mountain to Mumbai

Up From Underground

Street Still Life

Alibaug

MUMBAI—The Arabian Sea is a shimmering blue-tinged gold and the tall palms a fringed wall of green. In between are the sands of Alibaug’s beaches. You can imagine those beaches have changed little since British colonists saw them from the decks of tall ships bound for old Bombay, or Shivaji’s armies marched by few hundred […]

Ganpati

In the Bazaar

MUMBAI—At the risk of offending Edward Said, I will describe the famed Chor Bazaar. It is in a Muslim quarter of old Bombay, its narrow lanes caked with the accumulation of Bombay’s years and history, despite daily sweeping, one darkly glittering storefront after another, whose jumble of wares, all the amazing, exotic junk and treasure […]