Bombay/Mumbai: Immersions

In Bombay/Mumbai: Immersions, Priya Sarukkai Chabria weaves a narrative around the ever-pulsating and restless metropolis—India’s financial capital, accompanied by Christopher Taylor’s fascinating photographs that complement the text. She provides readers with a fresh experience of the city, one that captures its pungent edginess, its geography, abundant human stories, evidence of ruin alongside new growth, and its throbbing and often decomposed corporeality. The book maps several rhythms of time as the author and photographer travel around the city and is a cross-genre book—a memoir, travelogue, investigation, and poetic expositions—all harmoniously blended to perfection. During their tour of the town, dreamt of and desired by millions, the author and her friend visited relatively unexplored precincts, high-rises and heritage villages. They encountered vivid and poignant stories on the streets and in lesser-known trades, the city’s history, and the illusory yet surreal world of Bollywood.