what bombay feels like

Photo Essay by Priya Pachwadkar

Bombay – is chaotic at its worst but a composed unit at its best. It’s a city where we try to be everything and everywhere. The city lives in the extremes and on the edge. It’s on the edge between violence and dreams. This disparity is all consuming, and yet that is exactly what connects us.

The monsoon rises over the seas and has its reach beyond the high rises. The city that is a home away from home. The rain in Bombay is like that poetry book you revisit repeatedly and find yourself feeling new things every time. Just like any good poem, these feelings can sometimes be dreadful. The sea is the only empty space and source of solace. It’s a stark contrast from the layers and layers of people and buildings, like castles in the sky, that could come crumbling down any moment.

At the same time, when you think of it, Bombay is nothing but a huddle under an umbrella, a glass of cutting chai, and maybe, if you are in the mood to be a romantic, a sutta* or two.

No matter what anyone thinks, the romantics will always romanticize this city.


(Images shot on Pentax MX and Kodak Portra 160.)



* sutta – cigarette

Volume 09

clay | chlorophyll | crimson

Grass is green where you water it. LC’s words float along over Misch’s guitar. It’s a phrase that feels so obvious, and I’m sure those who tend to gardens know this more than most, but it seems to land more than before. The impact noticeable, memorable, echoing through my being. Perhaps we’re ingrained to think it’s greener elsewhere. This patch is the problem and not whether we’re watering it. The key is in the watering. How we go about this practice is what defines our patch of grass. No matter where we go, our patch is, perhaps, the same. Some attributes and characteristics have been changed but the essence is the same: Us.

Stepping into Volume 09 of imprint, marks our third year. I am learning that this patch of green that we have been tending to for the last several years will mould, shift, and sculpt. This depends on how we water it and allow it to take its own shape. It has already happened in wonderfully unexpected ways. There is only so much structure or shape we can predetermine. Beyond that, it will absorb what it needs and reject all that is unnecessary. And perhaps, in this practice, we are changed. Our grass is watered as we water that of our writing, our image making, our practice, our magazine.

From light to dark, rigid to supple, new to old, there is so much in between that is bright and vibrant and unexpected. The practice of our magazine has focused on being open to what we receive; being open to deeply listening to what is shared; being open to work taking us to new journeys. This volume, and this year, will be no different. We will continue tending to it as we have done, learning along the way, from past seasons and present ones.

And yet, I know it will be entirely different.
But still.
It will be watered.