35053668-Empire-of-the-Soul-Paul-William-Roberts

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‘There’s Far Too Much Muck to Rake Here!’
BOMBAY, 1992
Bombay was mind-boggling and I loved it. Which seems strange now
considering we arrived when the city is supposed to be at its most unattractive:
mid-monsoon. But the moment we stepped out of the filthy train and on to
the slushy platform at Bombay Central, I knew I’d finally found ‘my’ city.
Dirty, overcrowded, impersonal and entirely wonderful. Everything fascinated
me . . .
– From Socialite Evenings by Shobha Dé
The monsoon had failed to arrive on time – it usually does – so
Bombay on July 8, 1992, wasn’t at its most unattractive yet. It was,
however, at the end of its tether. Clouds like those above the Kuwaiti
oilfields after the Gulf War billowed above the city, barely spitting
the odd mouthful of their contents down on the steaming ants’ nest
jutting out into the Arabian Sea. The heat and humidity seemed to
have driven nearly all the inhabitants to desperate measures.
‘BOY’S HEALTHY LEG AMPUTATED’ read a headline in the
Times of India:
BOMBAY, July 8: Owing to the negligence of the civic Rajawadi
hospital doctors, a 12-year-old child lost his right leg while it was
actually the left that had to be amputated!
Hospital staff had apparently threatened the boy’s father ‘if he made
their callousness public.’ But nothing in Bombay is ever simple.
Elsewhere in the paper, the heat had seemingly driven another
individual to take out a personal ad:
I SANGEEI’A BALANI HAVE CHANGED
my name to Priya Mahesh Karamchandani.
Vide Gazette No: X- 2584.
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