Beach on the main downtown bay of Mumbai
These three photos show the way one of the beaches...
From corners of Bangalore to corners of
Mumbai,
given its size, some 24 million people, any coverage of this metropolis must be partial. It is probably the fourth biggest city in the world, although because of the way it is crammed into a peninsular it is one of the most difficult to navigate. This page has shots of the main downtown beach area, and of the first planned suburb of the city - Dadar. The old name for Mumbai is used at the head of this page as some of the shots were taken in 1994, a year before the colonial name was dropped in favour of the
goddess Mumbadevi.
...at the heart of the metropolis, is used as a recreational resource
Imagine the work of cutting up and laying out this fruit everyday and the short time it will last in the heat. While not wishing to dampen a fine display some of us might prefer our fruit wrapped and fly free - however, this display is preferable to the technique sometimes seen of placing the melons in drainage water to keep them hydrated!
Coconuts
have a singular ability to contain cool liquid in ferocious heat
Nut sellers snapped on their request, a solicitation quickly followed by asking for a fee
Not only humans are exhausted by the heat
Marine drive with the bay beyond
...advertising they support
Building along Marine Drive, with sea views, show their wealth confirmed by the...
Some apartment blocks in the area show a greater sense of style than others
As in so many countries housing crams its way down to the railway lines as seen here to the left
And in this case it is the clutter of temporary stalls that have found a small niche in which to lodge
In India the idea of refuse is foreign. One person's rubbish is another's
living - re-cycling
is all. Inevitably it falls to children to do much of the scavenging
What children leave is food for goats
Walking one's bear as one does
Rather an anthropocentric voice for plants which no doubt enjoy any additional liquid
Boys, after posing in the picture below, came to show me a sparrow they had caught
The sparrow seen nearby
Far from the British conception of a bungalow, in India it means roughly a family house, so as the families may be large and expand, so too bungalows are often large and expanded. This is the Dastoor family Bungalow which shows signs of many additions
Here, in Dadar, the houses are mostly of one and two stories interwoven with lanes which often offer...
...considerable shelter from trees, and seem far from the tightly packed city centre
Balconies are protected from human
and animal intruders
Cool tiles by a small shrine offer this dog
some comfort
Three examples of cycling: above multi-occupant, and to the right conventional and a tricycle-carrier
A very Indian street - a very Mumbai street
Trailers...
Here in Picture Posting
the next page leaves the
cows of Mumbai and goes to zoo animals in Trivandrum
Go to the next page
in the Mosaic Section - 'Wild Lands'.
Or go to the contents of the Mosaic Section.
Tórshavn - a somewhat smaller seaside town
To a very different Asian city - Hà Nội
