It looks like the SAJA Convention in NYC was pure gold. I was there only briefly to discuss long-form writing — but on the Sepia Mutiny site, Siddhartha Mitter has posted a report that, given Mr Mitter’s tastes and talents, happily sacrifices journalistic sobriety in favor of clever gyrations on the dance-floor. Mitter’s report relies on photographs by Preston Merchant who is engaged in an impressive “India Worldwide” documentary project. The above picture–of Indian gold merchants in Dubai–is a part of that project.

I have also been alerted to two fine pieces on Salon on the Mumbai bombing: one by Manish Vij and the other by Dilip D’Souza. (Thanks, PM.) And another excellent piece on Mumbai trains, in Stabroek News, by the peerless Rahul Bhattacharya:

To travel by train in Bombay is to feel humility. At rush hour, during which the series of bombs went off on Tuesday, it is the most grinding of urban experiences. You will have somebody’s finger in your eye, someone’s oiled hair in your nose, an armpit in your face, an elbow in your ribs, a knee in your groin, a briefcase thrust into your shin, and a thousand feet trampling upon yours. Bathed in sweat, your own and the communal sweat of the compartment, you will twist and turn and wriggle and writhe in search of the slenderest sliver of comfort. Then, unable - unwilling - to do more, you will surrender your body to the contour of the mass and let be done to it whatever must be done to it. At the stops, when hundreds fight to get on and off, you might be abused or punched or both. You feel you cannot take any more. But just then you might see a man without arms going through the same thing.

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