Planet Bombay
Audio 48:30
In the south of Bombay is the Dhobi Gat, the largest open-air laundry in the world.
© Côme Bastin
By: Céline Develay Mazurelle
51 min
Few cities in the world conjure up as many superlatives and contrasts as the noisy megalopolis of Bombay, officially named Mumbai since 1995, and stuck on a narrow peninsula on the west coast of India.
Publicity
Here, in 60 years, we have grown from 4 to more than 22 million inhabitants, "migrants" from all over the country, attracted by the lights and sirens of an economic capital with a GDP up to then of 300 billion of dollars.
The city alone is the hub of all the fury and momentum of the Indian subcontinent, which has often been said to be the Gateway.
The first time Côme Bastin set foot on this planet, among the crowd, between futuristic skyscrapers, Indo-British colonial remains and slums invaded by plastic, he immediately asked himself: but how does it work?
So, for us this week, he decided to go back and try to answer it.
Meet city lovers, hard workers: delivery men, washers or recyclers, we discover an urban colossus as fascinating as it is monstrous, whose model of growth and expansion is inevitably tested by the current pandemic and climatic upheavals. .
A report by Côme Bastin.
To extend the trip to the planet Bombay:
In pounds
"Bombay Maximum City", by Suketu Mehta.
Buchet-Chastel editions, 2006
“Shantaram”, by Gregory David Roberts.
Flammarion editions, 2007
"Night of the Stars", by Shobhaa De. Éditions Actes Sud, 2010
“The Ministry of Wounded Feelings”, by Altaf Tyrewala, Actes Sud, 2018
"The Rickshaw of Mr. Singh", by Olivier Da Lage, 2019.
In films
“Slumdog Millionaire”, based on Vikas Swarup's book, 2009
“The Lunchbox” Ritesh Batra, 2013
“Sacred Games”, a series based on Vikram Chandra's book, 2018
“Attack in Mumbai”, by Anthony Maras, 2018
"Monsieur", by Rohana Gera "(with Rahul Vohra) 2018.
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India
Trip
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