Shootingwalla's Cadie!

Last week I was on the dusty road to the Maharashtran interior. My friend (and best fixer!) Diti was on commission photographing the use of solar powered lights made by Greenlight Planet by villagers. The setting is the village of Chikanpada, 4-6 hours-depending on the driver-of a rough drive outside of Mumbai.

There are no more that 60 mud-brick houses, decorated with colourful doors and stencils, hay drying on makeshift huts and cows roaming around. The kids had finished school by the time we got there and were on overdrive to play and pose for the aliens. Most men were away working the fields and the remaining adult population equally bemused and curious. They were extremely accommodating and polite, despite the language problems. They only speak Marathi here you see. And my half hour chat with the three old men, kick-started by the exchange of tobacco for leaves ciggies, was enjoyable if wholly incomprehensible.
The simplicity of life in Chikanpada, the silence and endless vistas, the sharing of everything and the star-clad darkness of the night were such a contrast of the bustling mega-city we returned to. Still processing it.

Towers of Silence.

Mumbai has a strong (albeit declining) Parsee community, Zoroastrians that moved to India centuries back fleeing persecution in Persia. They have integrated extensively to the Indian society but have maintained their religious and some cultural distinctions.
One of them is the traditional way of treating the deceased. On Malabar Hill, Mumbai lie the Towers of Silence. Since in Zoroastrianism the sacred elements (fire, water and earth) cannot be defiled by the dead,burial or cremation are out of the question. The dead are brought to the Towers where they are lined in a cyclical fashion on top of the tower to be eaten by vultures. Soon after the bones would be collected and stored in an ossuary.
The fast declining population of vultures in the city during the last decades, mostly due to poisoning by the use of anti-infammatories drugs by humans and cattle, has left the Towers congested and unable to deal with non consumed bodies. And the community facing calls to allow burial for the first time in centuries.

* Disclaimer: Understandably, entry to the Towers of Silence is restricted for non-Parsees. For further info on the community and the Towers, try here and here.

The Queen's Necklace.

The southern tip of the peninsula housing the metropolis is flanked on the west by a magnificent bay. Starting with Chaupati beach on the north edge, a few thousand sandy footsteps will take you to Nariman Point and the end of what the locals call the Queen's Necklace.
Of course this refers to the lights at night along Marine Drive, the fast-paced, seafront highway. I reckon you can visualize it somehow. I also bet you guessed it, I have no photos of the lights, the necklace or any queen. I was busy strolling aimlessly and people watching.

My Stool.

This morning I was waiting for a pick up by SV Road, a super bustling central traffic artery of Mumbai. And being early for once, I sat on the edge of a side-walk flower bed. Two puffs into my morning cigarette and the security guard of the construction plot behind me taps me on the shoulder and nods his disapproval. And I'm baffled! Everybody sits anywhere here, you can practically find everything you imagine on the streets, and then some more. What's wrong with my cozy spot?
Before I could answer my naive question though, another tap on the shoulder and the same guard wearing his brightest smile has fetched me a stool. A stool to sit on the pavement while I wait! Now I'm confused. And humbled and blushing. The surreal and the kind in the length of a cigarette.