Bombay, Clockwise from the Top Left

Prima in Indis
Gateway to India
Star of the East
With her face to the West

- "that old song"

As I mentioned earlier, I'm in Bombay now, living in a northern suburb called Bandra, which, if you know Pittsburgh, is a bit like Shadyside, and if you know New York, is a bit like Park Slope, Brooklyn. It's filled with trees and upper-middle class people and boutiques and bars. I live right in the thick of it, on Linking Road, right near a big college called National College of the University of Mumbai. There are young, lively-looking students milling about the street food stands in the mornings and drunkenly running over the homeless people who sleep on the sidewalks at night.

But Bombay, oh my, what a town! It's like New York and Baltimore combined -- dirtier than both and louder than both, but with grand buildings everywhere, great people all around, and an arts and cultural scene that's sort of hard to find, but I'm making some headway. Like Baltimore, neighborhoods change every five blocks, from shi-shi to slum, but the change, like everything here -- the smells, the poverty, the noise, the crowds -- is more extreme. I'll try to highlight that here in my first post about the big city. Should be one of many -- there are tons of other things I want to blog about, like the public transportation system, the food, some musical events, my own neighborhood, etc -- but blogger limits the number of pictures I can post, I think. This entry took a really long time. So, without further ado, here is Bombay, clockwise from the top left...

(a) fishermen playing rummy on Sunday, their only day off during the week. no one working-class in India takes Saturday off... they would starve, but sunday is sacred. this photo, like all the photos in this series was taken in the koli fishermen's slum, just down the road from the famous gateway of india (see below) in the eastern part of colaba, a very hip neighborhood in south bombay named for the koli fisherfolk, who were bombay's first inhabitants. (b) a "goods carrier" truck labelled in gaudy hindi... you see these trucks all over bombay, painted in really loud colors. they are the equivalent of mack trucks. (c) a narrow alleyway in the koli slum. (d) sunday badminton.





(a) the colorful junk boats at sassoon docks... photography is technically illegal here, which is why the pic is a bit awkward. (b) prawn shellling at sassoon docks. (c) more sassoon junks.




(a) and (b) cafe leopold, a tourist trap on colaba causeway that used be a british tea house in the days of the raj and was notorious as a black market hangout for pimps, thieves, drug dealers, smugglers, and passport forgers. it has been around since 1870, and was glorified by gregory david roberts in his novel "shantaram," which i'm reading right now. it is not, however, an expat bar. when i suggested going there to a fellow expat, she said, "only tourists go to leopold. you're not a tourist, are you?"



(a) flute peddler on chowpatty beach. (b) krishna cola stall on chowpatty beach. (c) carnival atmosphere, chowpatty beach on a sunday night. (d) same as (c).



MUCH more to come...