Sion Koliwada

On Assignment: And justice for all. Extra Shots
Mhapkar's lawyer Shakil's story. 

Shakil is a lawyer and publishes a weekly newspaper called Janata Ka Aina. He runs an NGO that educates children in the Antop Hill slums,, among other things.

"All around the Janata ka Aaina office, the community is changing. The drills and cranes reconstructing the lane leading up to it send up clouds of dust through the day. The sprawl of one-room tenements that edges up to the building are in various states of demolition. Ahmed cautions us when we invite him outdoors for a photograph; the builders working on the project will probably want to know all about the story. A group of young men from the tenements, clad in tight jeans, sporting red tilaks, are interested in him. “Who is he? You’re writing about him because he reads this newspaper? What do you mean, he publishes it?”"


In last weekend's Mint Lounge, Supriya Nair listens to two people who look back at the 20 years after the worst riots Mumbai has seen.


Read the full  Live Mint  story 'And justice for all' here. 

One of the boys who asked us what we were doing. He was ready to pose for a shot. Sweey chap, he's what you would call a aam mumbaiya ghetto boy.
 

This building is a hutment rehabilitation building. Unlike regular societies, they do not have a security at the gate to see who comes in. That is probably why one of the homes here had a video camera at the door / doorbell.

Shivdi

On Assignment:
And justice for all. 

Mhapkar's story.

Riot after riot it is the same story and in last weekend's Mint Lounge, Supriya Nair listens to two people who look back at the 20 years after the worst riots Mumbai has seen.

 Read Mhapkar's(photo above)  story in  'And justice for all' here. 


Suggested reading:
An old book called Riot After Riot, written by MJ Akbar. It will serve as a handbook on how to feel the pulse if a place is slowly spiralling towards a riot like situation. He goes from town to town that have been hit by riots in to 70s and 80s. Hindu Vs Muslims, Dominant caste Vs Lower caste, etc. and try to find out what Indian love to kill Indians.

 If you want to know what it feels like in real time, follow the news from Hyderabad these days.

Raheja Hospital Road

Shoes drying on the window that separates Gulafsha's home and the neighbouring college ground where she plays


 'Hand Of God'

Football is magical. It's taken her to college, to the London Olympics, to places that would not have been possible if she hadn't kicked the ball.

Sunaina Kumar reported for Tehelka about young girls from a Mumbai slum are using football to break new grounds. These images are from the home of the Gulafsha, the girl featured in the story.





Her book shelf.




London 2012 memorabilia







Romance Book among other things on her shelf



Gulafsha at home

Raheja Hospital Road

Girls football shoes

Young girls from a Mumbai slum are using football to break new grounds. Sunaina Kumar reports for Tehelka. Here

Raheja Hospital Road

Friendship Leaves.

A best friend's name
on a tender leaf
goes into hibernation
between
two inert leaves of a book

A floodgate of memories
will open one day
when the book is
opened



This is how girls who play football in a playground  in Mahim cement their friendship




Extra shots from the photoshoots about young girls from a Mumbai slum are using football to break new grounds. Sunaina Kumar reports for Tehelka. Here

Raheja Hospital Road

On Assignment: Stars in the their eyes.

Young girls from a Mumbai slum are using football to break new grounds. Sunaina Kumar reports for Tehelka. Here

Mint Road

Pigeon Economy: Pigeons, cow and charity.

Read the full pigeon story by Supriya Nair for Mint here .

This was erected on the memory of Smt. Raziya Devi Gupta.


 

Dadar Kabutar Khana

Pigeons of Mumbai series: Kaala Kauwa in a Kabutar Khana


People from all over town bring injured birds to the Dadar Kabutarkahana. Like this crow with a broken wing. Frightened to his or her hollow bones but on the road to recovery among the thousands of pigeons who circle him like.

It must be terrifying.

 But now you know where to take an injured bird.

Cuffe Parade

Pankaj Mishra. Author of From the Ruins of Empire: The Revolt Against the West and the Remaking of Asia (Penguin India)

The three protagonists of From The Ruins, Iran’s Jamal al-din al-Afghani, China’s Lian Qichao and India’s Rabindranath Tagore, not only inspired and animated (often through contradiction and disagreement) to the continent’s anti-colonial movements, but were also internationalist visionaries, all too aware of the potential failures of brittle models of liberal democracy and nationalism. Mishra spoke about his book to Supriya Nair, in Mint.

Read it here.





In New York Times, Pankaj Mishra's life story.

NM Joshi Marg

A young mud wrestler getting ready.

NM Joshi

Prachi and Chinmay. 

Mumbai's youngest mud wrestlers.

 

NM Joshi Marg

The room where the wrestlers train has a pit with red coloured mud. A colour that we are not accustomed to here in this part of India. 


The red soil smells different when it sucks in the moisture from the dense Mumbai air. That mingled with the smell of sweat, damp clothes that take forever to dry, and the crumbling decaying building takes you far away from the city, to a place far away.