Mumbai, Bombay, whatever you’d like to call it: The largest city in the world, slums bigger than anything in Asia, 7.2 of the city’s 18 million people live in them, the size of a small nation, 40% of India’s income spread across a tiny section of the population. Bollywood, the stock exchange, the gateway to India immersed in a sea of people, all intricately linked, both rich and poor

How can you come here and not be shocked into disbelief? The contrasts are more than you can take. You wake up in your nice, western hotel, have a light breakfast, some cereal, a cup of coffee and you venture out into the streets. Several doormen try to guide you to a waiting cab, one of half a dozen hoping to make fifty, maybe a hundred rupees double charging you, but you decide to go for a walk. You turn the corner

into a side street off Bombay Hospital. A waft of garbage, that familiar sun-drenched, rain-drenched rotting smell, and then it’s gone, in its stead a whiff from a street cart, fresh dumpling deep fried. The sidewalks are covered with blue plastic attached to the wall, the other side pulled down by ropes, kept in place by heavy stones. Underneath, bodies sleeping, children, half naked stumble out, rubbing the sleep from their eyes, they stare at you

a few blocks further and you’re in the markets of the Fort area, but it’s still too early, it’s a Sunday, it’s only 9 o’clock and the shutters are down, but the market’s not empty, it’s crowded, the sleeping crowd everywhere they fill the sidewalks, men, women, elderly, children, by the dozen, the hundred, some are cooking over a small fire, others line up for the one drain that’s working, washing their clothed bodies, a little while longer and the supply will be shut down for the remainder of the day

you’re at a loss and you jump into a passing taxi, driving north out of this scene as the city wakes up around you, soon the streets are filled with ox-carts, carts pushed by men, pulled by men, overburdened, chugging along in the morning cool, carrying god knows what. The car takes you away from the alleyways, and soon you hit a street, well-paved, a boulevard, palm trees appear, villas protected by 7-feet walls, shopping centers, Adidas, Nike, Reebok, McDonalds, Pizza Hut, Domino’s, Baskin Robbins. A Mercedes dealership

you stop in front of a traffic light and they approach, hawkers selling gigantic balloons, fake flowers, bootleg copies of a Thousand Splendid Suns, you ignore them, try waving them away. The light hits green, the car lurches forward, stops again, more people come at you, beggars, a boy carrying a baby in a plastic bag, a man with horrific burns all across his chest, a mother her arms covered in scabs: two rupees, please sir, sir, sir, sir, two rupees, sir, an arm enters the window, a hand touches your face and you roll up the window, and as you do it, you hate this city for making you, but what else can you do

ten minutes later and you get out at a Hindu temple, you take off your shoes, and walk bare-feet up the dusty step, surrounded by a gentle mass of human beings, small bowls of flowers and coconuts in their hands, upstairs they are blessed by the priests, everything is calm and serene, as friendly as a crowd can be. Then as you walk down the stairs a drop falls from the suddenly darkened sky, a minute later it’s as if a huge bucket has been emptied over the city, visibility brought down to a few meters, the rain hammers the ground, drowning out all sound, causing torrents in the streets

you hop back in a car, further north along the coast you go, passing slums, malls, more slums, more malls, it never stops, and all through it the rain keeps coming back, slowly tearing down the buildings, rotting the city as it waits by the sea, and yet mumbai has what only a few cities in the world have, a unique energy that you can’t define, but when you visit the city you feel it and remember it and will want to come back for it, until once again you can take no more