June marks the perfect time to begin an internship, but for Mahi Chatterjee and her six colleagues, it’s more than just a stepping stone to a job.
Each of them, representing a different island of Mumbai, brings a unique perspective on the city to their internship at The Indian Express — and their shared mission is to prove their writing style is worthy of a permanent role.
Mahi, along with Shiva, Mariya, Ritvik, Kiara, Aditya, and Vihaan, are tasked with documenting Mumbai’s multifaceted identity, yet they all have their own reasons for choosing this path.
Shiva, with his ties to Little Colaba; Mariya, from Mahim; Mahi representing Colaba; Kiara, who speaks for Bombay Island; Aditya for Mazgaon; Ritvik for Worli and Vihaan, a voice for Parel, all bring distinct views of the city’s past and present to their work.
But can they collectively capture the essence of a city that’s as complex and diverse as their backgrounds?
Mahi, the protagonist, is a 21-year-old who finds herself at the mercy of balancing journalistic writing, making new friendships, and trying to adapt to the corporate working style. She has an enormous assignment to write about the culture of Mumbai!
Karina Pandya’s novel traces the extraordinary journey of Mahi as a journalist and how she assimilates all the information that she finds out about the city to write her main assignment. As she discovers new aspects of the city, she finds herself bewildered and in awe of a city that she once took for granted.
A great book which tells you more than you can imagine about Mumbai!
Karina Pandya
Karina Pandya is the author of three books—one nonfiction (Touching Void…Surviving a Car Accident), one fiction (New York Wakes to Culture as Born in New York) and one poetry book – Limits Make Things Too Small. Her first book, Touching Void … Surviving a Car Accident (nonfiction), is a deep memoir of her past, and New York Wakes to Culture has been sold internationally.
She was nominated as Poet of the Year by the International Society of Poets in 2004 and was a semi-finalist in the International Poetry Contest in the USA in 2002. She has spoken at various events and taught at Business schools on topics such as film, film
marketing, digital marketing, social media, mental health, books, and poetry. Her writings have appeared in the Hindustan Times Café newspaper, and she blogs and writes short stories.
Limits Make Things Too Small is the name of her startup that was noticed for organising arguably the most high-profile poetry event of the year in Mumbai in 2017. It featured top celebrities and trending spoken word poets. The startup also released an edition of a literary magazine, Digital Epoch.
She has graduated from Jai Hind College and done her postgraduate degree in communications from Sophia Polytechnic
