The Attack
Though the events I relate here are no secret and I wrote about them, more briefly, publicly at the time, I thought it was best to restrict the audience of this one. If you’re reading this, THANK YOU so much for being a paid subscriber. It means the world to me.
On 23 May 2018, I went to meet people at a film studio in a part of Bombay called Andheri West. It's not known for being a particularly rough neighbourhood. Swanky looking over-airconditioned tower blocks—giant popsicles—alternate with chawls, lean-to dwellings with corrugated iron or dark blue tarpaulin roofs and Muslim food stalls with live chickens in crates. There are goats wandering about across the road from the office blocks, and many patches of wasteland and rubble and partially constructed buildings clad in scaffolding. Many parts of Bombay's northern suburbs look like this (I lived at the other end of Bombay, near its southernmost edge, in the genteel dilapidation of the old town with its historic buildings).