Greetings from Mumbai, where residents take breathing space where they can find it
Far-Flung Postcards is a weekly series in which NPR’s international team shares moments from their lives and work around the world.
Mumbai is a city of more than 18 million people crammed on a tiny peninsula, and so residents take their breathing space where they can get it.
That’s often on promenades, like this one by Carter Road, that gird the Arabian Sea.
On a recent day, I joined what felt like the rest of Mumbai to enjoy the late-afternoon breeze.
While strolling, I saw this gentleman read his newspaper. A worker napped. A mother pushed a pram. A housemaid walked an expensive, tiny dog. A couple canoodled in a corner. A woman wearing a face-veil lifted it to take a photo with another young woman. A musician sang off-key to an audience of one stumbling drunk man.
Mumbai residents deserve more space than the municipality gives. And yet watching the unfurling reel of Mumbai life on one narrow promenade is one of this city’s quiet delights.
See more photos from around the world:
- Greetings from Kalk Bay, a South African fishing village where wild seals await scraps
- Greetings from Acre, Israel, where an old fortress recalls the time of the Crusades
- Greetings from a Paris park, where a lone sequoia tree is a marvel to behold
- Greetings from Vienna, where an imperial palace hosts a holiday market for all
- Greetings from Chiloé Island, Chile, where the fast-moving tides are part of local lore
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