The Other Side of the Glass

Despite having lost itself in its own warped success, Mumbai will always be beautiful.

- Zuni Chopra

MY GLASSES have bothered me since the day I got them. Agreed, that day was six years ago, but they are as much of a nuisance now as they were on that fateful, sunny Monday morning when they wrestled onto my face and sat there like an overgrown wart.

The doctor said they allowed me to see well. I thought I saw quite well enough, thank you very much. But nothing could have properly prepared me for the feeling of being able to observe every leaf upon every tree, notice the sunlight dancing off of them, and identify the subtle shift in their shades of green.

I’ve seen a lot since then. As I said, it has been six years. Would you like me to tell you what I’ve seen?

THE AC BUBBLE

Mumbai is a city that’s lost itself and its beauty in its own warped success. Boxes of houses grow into towers of haphazard roofs and wet, faded clothes, trampling each other into the ground. Looming billboards flashing the names of numerous useless brands, bordered by the possibly even more useless promises of the famed, soar above dilapidated houses that will live forever reminded they are beneath such luxury. Between the rows of BMWs packed against one another on the dusty roads, women and children press themselves and their wounds and their pasts against darkened windows, no longer so much begging as fulfilling another of life’s morbid demands till it is time to leave it all behind.