The epiphany that led to the Bombay v New York project came about two years ago, at a time when Sondhe was feeling a bit dejected. "I was taking around my portfolio," she recalls, "and I remember leaving an art director's office at this huge magazine, and as I was walking out she was saying 'We see that you can shoot these exotic places and make them look beautiful, but can you shoot here?' and I was sort of upset about it. So I was walking around New York and I was thinking 'There are so many things here that are in Bombay (now Mumbai). I'm gonna do this as my portfolio. As I started presenting these ideas to other people, they said 'That's awesome!' And now it's become my lifelong project."
Sondhe is now ready to up the ante. "I've done a lot of the stuff that you see every day and what you'd see in Lonely Planet, but this summer I'm going to be doing all that goes on at night, after hours, in both cities. Start to delve in and see where that takes me. I'd love to do both Mayors; it's a dream of mine to do the mafia leaders."
This next phase is not without its challenges, Sondhe says: "I'm trying to do sort of X-rated subjects in a G-rated way, I want everyone to see it and I have baby cousins in India who keep an eye on me, so I have to keep everyone in mind."
Sondhe hopes a show will come eventually, but not just yet. "I would love to see the images big, see them up somewhere," she says. "I think these are things that people know already about the city, but there should be more that people don't know -- maybe another two years. I just want to do things that are interesting to me." On her last trip to India, she says there were people ready to show it, but "It's not done yet, this is just the beginning. There's so many ideas that I still have."
Image: Mumbai's Dhobighat (left) and a laundromat in New York.
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