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Tag Archives: Mumbai

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 […]

Out of the City

MUMBAI—I had been too long in Mumbai. I had been too long with only the banyan trees of the city with their long tentacle roots for a taste of nature, the only horizon the Arabian Sea rolling in at the edge of the metropolis. But then one person introduced me to someone who introduced me to […]

On the Streets of Mumbai

Land of Water

MUMBAI—There is a liquid quality to Mumbai. Water is everywhere, omnipresent without being always visible. It is especially so now in the season of the monsoon, but even during the dry season there is a wetness and fluidity to the place. It is hard to catch your breath as it feels like half the air […]

If You Can Make It Here… Mumbai, Mumbai.

MUMBAI—There comes a moment in every journey, in every move to a new place, when the strange becomes normal, when what was overwhelming bizarre becomes mostly unremarkable. It is a shift more sudden than gradual. It only seems gradual because it does take time and because the shift often passes unnoticed. What was outlandish one week […]

Walking in the Monsoon

MUMBAI—I walked today. I left and turned right, made my way south and west, following my instincts and occasionally my compass. Two blocks from our apartment the hard rain began. It rained and it rained and there was nothing to do but be wet and try to not think about what might be in the […]