Google Arts & Culture features content from over 2000 leading museums and archives who have partnered with the Google Cultural Institute to bring the world's treasures online. Image by Sooni TaraporevalaOne picture captures painter MF Husain, who she happened to meet through her friend Khalid Mohamed. "We were discussing a lot of ideas," she says. "I was an early convert," she says of the photo-sharing website, where she has uploaded over 3,000 pictures. This is the city as one sharp eye has seen it, and I’m happy to have had Sooni’s eye as my guide," writes Rushdie in the Foreward.Years have passed and the city has undergone considerable change, but Sooni Taraporevala's love for it hasn't, and neither has her style of photographing it. Then, Mira Nair introduced Sooni to famous photographer and mentor Raghubir Singh in 1982. But, the genesis of the book, says Taraporevala, owes much to Devika Daulet-Singh, founder of New Delhi gallery PHOTOINK. "I wanted to portray a fairly diverse picture of the city – across communal lines, across class lines – to show the different levels," she says. For sure, says Sooni Taraporevala through her latest book of photographs that follows Mumbai over 40 yearsThe searing afternoon heat notwithstanding, we are tempted to stand in the balcony of Sooni Taraporevala's Grant Road home to observe a fast altering city. Then I began shooting in colour, thanks to Raghubir Singh. (1988), Taraporevala was into travel photography for magazines and newspapers. I did my show on Parsis in colour, but I wanted this one to be black-and-white, because that is how I started with photography – I only did black and white for many years," she explains.The cover of Sooni Taraporevala's book Home In The City. It is curated by Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi and in collaboration with Sunaparanta, Goa. Updated Date: I think greed is ruining this city," she adds.Having said that, Taraporevala believes there is plenty still to romance with the city through her lens. The idea of Mumbai as home is one that binds together a million people; it is a romanticised thought and a phrase we often use when we're homesick or appreciating the beauty and eccentricities of the city.
In one series of pictures taken at a The choice of these subjects is not deliberate, she says. The first, Parsis: The Zoroastrians of India (2000), documented stories of a community, she belongs to and understands best. "He was a lovely person, very comfortable around the camera. Pico Iyer called her a "connoisseur of initimacy", and this is evident from the pictures she has taken of the more private moments of her subjects.