Mumbai v New York: A tale of two cities

Consider this patch of humid land, sitting at the nation's edge, packed with people of all income levels, trying to make a go of it while more arrive every day. Real estate prices are ridiculous, the infrastructure crumbles regularly, the traffic is frequently thick and slow. And yet, it's the nation's financial capital as well as home to actors, writers, publishers and filmmakers responsible for much of the country's arts and entertainment.

I'm referring to Mumbai -- and also to New York.

Nisha Sondhe, a photographer who calls both cities home, is busy pairing them up in a multi-year visual project she calls Bombay v New York. At her online portfolio, visitors compare and contrast images of people, architecture and landscapes both here and there.

A Lexington Avenue construction worker in a yellow hardhat and white tee-shirt, his back to the camera, is twinned with two smiling sari-clad women, metal containers of broken rocks balanced on their heads. A picture of rows of Bombay duck on the beach precedes freshly hosed sides of beef in the Meatpacking District. A Sikh man in a crisp turban gazes out a suburban train window; a young woman wearing tell-tale white iPod earbuds sits in a subway car.

And so she shoots, on and on, making visual cultural connections from Coney Island and Chelsea to Koliwada and Crawford Market.

Image: Mumbai's Gateway of India (left) and New York's Grand Central Station. (inset) a self portrait of Nisha Sondhe