Essay: A Love Letter to My Favorite City by Seher Shodhan

Seher Shodhan’s personal essay is an ode to life in Mumbai as it chronicles parts of her childhood weaving in the foods that were her lifeline.

      Mumbai during rains is glorious. I know everyone complains about the humidity, the stench, the mosquitoes, the floods, and just about everything else, but for me, it meant eating corn. I lived two minutes away from the sea. If you took a right after exiting my building complex and walked a bit, it was right there. Marine Drive. A roughly three-kilometer-long promenade along the Arabian Sea; this was where I grew up. Don’t get me wrong. The sea has taken on an ash-grey color with decades of pollution, and you can always see bits of garbage bobbing on the waves, but there is still something magical about the place. When the sun sets in the evening, the bustling city is cast in a soft warm glow, and the chatter of people mixed with the cacophony of traffic, honks, and taxi drivers swearing is almost cathartic. If you grew up in Mumbai, you grew up with these sounds.