Mumbai | Mumbai
May.15.2013
I see such pictures and cringe. It is not about colour. Or race. It is about how, even with the goodness of our hearts, we do not understand whether anybody wants our help. According to the caption that appeared in the paper, the lady (I shall not name her or reveal her nationality) is a “...
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Mar.30.2013
The princess was young, beautiful, spoke English better than Maggie Smith, carried a smart phone everywhere, and we were her guests. One of the most modern countries in the world, India also remains one of the most traditional. It...
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Feb.24.2013
The voodoo priest tucked up his white dhoti and knelt on a cloth spread across the dirt in front of the low altar he’d pieced together against the hut wall. Shoulders hunched forward, he chanted prayers while burning incense...
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Jul.08.2012
Balconies have a funny way of looking like life. The openness that allows you to look at the sky, but not escape to it. We are not birds, but our feathers are often ruffled. And then sitting in the half-open, like a person just woken up from sleep, the balcony brings in invigorating tea. It is hot...
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Dec.26.2011
I have encountered only a handful of people who are as selfless as Mr Mukul Kumar Mukherjee of Mumbai. I used to visit him when he lived in an airport quarter probably built by the Britishers. It was almost a village mileau in the heart of the then Bombay. He lived there with his brothers and...
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Jul.22.2011
He was dead. For a day. Two days? I, too, do not recall. This was days after the blasts. In a crowded area where cars, buses ply, and people walk about reaching destinations, a cabbie’s body went unnoticed. Had he been a victim, he might have been seen.
The concerned city kills people everyday. It...
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Apr.10.2011
The private observance of religious minorities is at stake when it comes to the anti-secularism in practice. It could be denied but true that the whole world is in against ‘freedom of religion and faith’ as the anti-secularist approach has got a solid embodiment even in a ‘constitutionally...
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Mar.22.2011
It started out as fine dining. Then, two hours later, scenes: Mangled car, a body with flesh exposed, shaking. Cops. Two hours can change how we look at the world as the world goes on looking for a moon larger and closer to us.
Yesterday, a professional acquaintance had invited me for...
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Sep.01.2010
In the bustling Metropolitan of Mumbai, we have three seasons - hot-sweaty-dusty, wet-damp-cool, and hot-not-so-sweaty. What the Northern Hemisphere knows as the summer season, we know as the monsoons, or the wet-damp-cool season, between the months of June and September. Summer never really ends...
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Nov.10.2009
A few days ago they said there would be no water for 24 hours in some parts of the city. We filled buckets and empty vessels and covered them up ever since it was discovered that mosquitoes now prefer clean water. One container was too broad, so I used a newspaper over it and as the hours passed...
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