Jonathan in Bali

The Gateway of India was built on Apollo Bunder to commemorate the landing of King George V and Queen Mary in December 1911, the first English monarch to visit India. It was erected in 1924 and finished in 1927, designed by George Willet in Indo-Saracenic style with influences from Gujarat. Indo-Saracenic is a combination of Neo-Gothic and Mughal. It was built from local sandstone. Opposite it is the Taj Mahal Hotel designed by W. Chambers in Indo-Saracenic style. The promenade is full of tourists, photographers and sellers of postcards and maps. There are also horse and carts called Victorias.

The High Court of Mumbai, India is a towering presence designed in typical English style with a soaring 53 metre tower. It was completed in 1878 and opened in 1879. Unfortunately photographing is not allowed inside, but the security guards were very obliging. It is very busy indeed inside.

5,000 dabbawallas of Mumbai carry dabbas - tiffin boxes - containing freshly cooked lunches for workers. Husbands leave early for work. The boxes are collected at home, transported, sorted and delivered in a relay system to the husbands. A highly sophisticated centuries-old coding system, using colours, numbers and signs, was devised by the dabbawallas themselves. Most are illiterate. After lunch the boxes are collected and the whole thing is done in reverse.

Many Indians are very happy to have their portraits taken and some even ask for it!

The David Sasson Library and Reading Room, Mumbai, were built in the Venetian Gothic style in 1870. It's the oldest library in the city and was established by an Iraqi Jewish businessman called David Sassoon. There's a statue of him in the entrance hall. David Sassoon's grandson built the Knesseh Ell Yahoo Syngague in 1884, which is close by across the street.

The blue and white coated Iraqi synagogue down a side street in Kala Ghoda is stunning. It was built in 1884 by Jacob Sassoon, the grandson of David Sassoon. The arches, columns, stained glass windows and high women's gallery are beautifully proportioned.

The Afghan Church in Mumbai, India was built to commemorate the maryrs of the First Afghan War (1835-1842). It is in fact a Presbyterian Church with only about 30 members left - mostly soldiers. It's in the Neo-Gothic style and marked by a tall spire that was meant to be spotted from the harbour. It has wonderful stained glass windows and geometric floor tiles that were imported from England..

Dhobi Ghat is where Mumbai's dirty linen is washed by men in long rows of open cubicles. They come mainly from Bihar. It is about 140 years old. There are 1,026 troughs. The clothes with a single colour come from somewhere like a hospital or business. They will arrange to pick up laundry from your home and deliver it back.

Mahalaxmi Temple, Mumbai is perched on a hilltop facing the sea. It is colorful and covered in flowers. Photographs inside are not allowed. It is dedicated to Laxmi, the Hindu goddess of wealth and her consort Vishnu.

St Thomas Cathedral was Mumbai's first Anglican church built by the East India Company for their own worship. It was opened on Christmas Day 1718 and the successor trustees still manage it. It was built before British dominance was achieved in the Battle of Plessey in 1757. Its roof was cannonball-proof! In 1816 it was consecrated in the name of St Thomas, the Apostle of India. King George V and Queen Mary worshipped here in 1911 on their way to Delhi and Mother Teresa in 1983.

Street life in Mumbai is crowded, colorful, and full of unexpected moments.

Banganga Tank, Mumbai, India is one of the oldest parts of the city. It is a large, stepped well or tank surrounded by 30 temples, 2 hermitages and several local gymnasiums. The steps were constructed during the Silhara Dynasty between the 9th and 13th centuries. The water is believed to have been sourced with the help of an arrow shot by Rama. There are many ducks on the water as well as devotees.

Colaba in South Mumbai is full of colonial architecture. There is a busy market. It was originally a sleepy fishing island populated by Koli fishermen, from which it gets its name.

Nagaland is landlocked in the north east of India, one of India's 28 states, created in 1963, with a population of about 2 million people from 16 Tibetan Burmese tribes, who have nothing in common with the vast majority of Indians. Nobody is quite sure where they came from - the Unrepresented Nations and People's Organisation says Mongolia in the 10th century. Each Naga tribe has its own language or dialect. The villages are independent of each other, and self-sufficient. During World War II the Japanese hoped to reach Calcutta through the Naga Hills and were driven back from the Indian border to Burma in 1944 by Commonwealth forces and Naga warriors loyal to the British. The Nagas were enthusiastic headhunters. The British criminalised it in the 1920s, but it continued well into the 1960s and even 1980s, although there was mass conversion to Christianity in the late 19th century largely by American missionaries. They were renowned fighters. The Ahom kings of Thailand conquered neighbouring Assam, but not the Naga Hills, in the 13th century. The Naga Hills were never part of Mughal India, which conquered Assam in the early 17th century. They are adorned with tattoos and hats decorated with wild boar horns. The great hornbill is the national bird. They make great use of cowries and conch shells in their traditional costumes. Brass heads worn as chest ornaments indicate head-taking status.

The Hornbill Festival is organized by the State Tourism and Art & Culture between 1 and 10 December every year. The The Hornbill Festival is held at Naga Heritage Village, Kisama, about 12 km from Kohima. All the tribes of Nagaland take part.

The Naga Hills, Nagaland, about 3,825 metres (12,549 ft), are between the border of India and Myanmar and are part of a complex mountain system.

Nagaland is landlocked in the north east of India, one of India's 28 states, created in 1963, with a population of about 2 million people from 16 Tibetan Burmese tribes, who have nothing in common with the vast majority of Indians. Nobody is quite sure where they came from - the Unrepresented Nations and People's Organisation says Mongolia in the 10th century.

Nagaland is landlocked in the north east of India, one of India's 28 states, created in 1963, with a population of about 2 million people from 16 Tibetan Burmese tribes, who have nothing in common with the vast majority of Indians. Nobody is quite sure where they came from - the Unrepresented Nations and People's Organisation says Mongolia in the 10th century.

The Oberoi Grand is the doyenne of Indian hotels. Opened in 1888, this luxury heritage hotel is a palatial landmark in colonial Calcutta, an oasis of tranquility in the heart of throbbing Kolkata.

The British colonial hotel, built in 1783 by Englishman William Ford, in 2016, before it changed hands in 2018 and was renovated as a legacy hotel.

The Hooghly River (Hugli; Hoogli or Hugli) is approximately 260 kilometres long (160 miles) and is a tributary of the Ganges River in West Bengal, India.

The Missionaries of Charity was founded on October 7, 1950 by Mother Teresa and her small band of dedicated pupils for the purpose of serving humanity with the vow of “Wholehearted and Free service to the poorest of the poor”. Their mission was to care for “the hungry, the naked, the homeless, the crippled, the blind, the lepers, and all those people who feel unwanted, unloved, uncared for throughout society, people that have become a burden to the society and are shunned by everyone.” After receiving permission from the Vatican to establish her own order, Mother Teresa established an institute which was initially called the Diocesan Congregation of the Calcutta Diocese. It began as a small community with 12 members in Calcutta. Gradually, with the passage of time, it came to be known as the Missionaries of Charity. By granting a Decree of Praise, Pope Paul VI granted Mother Teresa’s request to expand her congregation to other countries. The congregation’s first house outside India was in Venezuela, followed by Rome and Tanzania, and eventually across many countries in Asia, Africa, and Europe. By 1996, the Congregation was operating 517 missions in more than 100 countries. Presently, it is assisted by over one million co-workers and many donations from people worldwide. The society has over 4,500 sisters as its member, and has a presence in over 133 countries.

The Cathedral of the Most Holy Rosary, the last surviving relic of Portuguese settlers in the city, provides compelling evidence of Calcutta’s cosmopolitan past. The Portuguese built a chapel for their Augustinian friars. By the mid-18th century there was a substantial Portuguese population, which needed a place of worship. With the financial assistance of a wealthy Portuguese trader and philanthropist called Joseph Barretto, they converted the Augustinian chapel into a church. The church was consecrated in 1799 and dedicated to Our Blessed Lady of the Rosary. It is in Portuguese Church Street, near Barabazar Market, surrounded by small, colourful, shops and buildings. It is now a cathedral, the last relic in the city of a once large Portuguese presence. Two lofty, domed towers, with crown-shaped cupolas, and a brightly coloured decorative pediment, dominate the exterior of the building. Go through an arch and you will be in the interior with tall columns and wooden pews on both sides of the aisle. The white and gold painted altar dominates the scene beautifully illuminated by the circular stained-glass windows. The interior contains striking, vividly painted, and often gory sculptures. The statue of the Virgin Mary with the infant Jesus occupies pride of place on the massive altarpiece. Fourteen wooden panels in bas relief depict the fourteen Stations of the Cross. Prints available at www.jonathaninbali.com and www.murnis.com

Kolay market of Sealdah is one of the 54 wholesale markets in Kolkata and one of the oldest and biggest markets. It is Calcutta's largest wholesale vegetable market. The Kolays were a zamindar family from the Bankura District of West Bengal. The market area was previously a stable for horses, which was acquired by Nafar Chandra Kolay, a rich businessman, who established the market in 1933. The market is the hub of the wholesale vegetable trade of the state and caters to the entire city of Kolkata. Its turnover is one of the largest for vegetable markets in India. It is near Sealdah Railway Station giving easy movement of goods. The market deals in all types of vegetables, fruits and rice and is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. There are 5 wide entrances. The present building is about 80 years old and has been partially repaired from time to time, but some decayed and dilapidated parts are visible. The owner of the market has about 150 employees and the rest are traders and porters. There are about 200 stalls. Your first sight is groups of well built men in colourful turbans. They wrestle huge bundles weighing hundreds of kilograms on their turban-wrapped heads taken from trucks and carts outside to the wholesalers inside. Each team generally has 15-16 men, mostly from the same extended family or village. They work shifts of 8 to 12 hours. The bundles vary in weight. The smaller ones of less than 200 kg can be carried by 3 people. The bigger loads weighing more than 400 kg and need 5 men. The wholesalers pay the team leader and money is divided accordingly. Only 18% of porters are from West Bengal while 76% are migrants from Bihar and 6% are UP migrants. 90% of porters are Hindus and the rest are Muslims. Life is tough and they start working young. By the time they reach 50, many are forced to retire due to degenerative diseases caused by the heavy weight of the loads they carry. The narrow lanes of Kolay Market are slippery with rotten vegetables, fruits and dirt. There is no provision of proper garbage disposal so the dirt remains in the market throughout the day. About 40 sweepers clean the market twice a day but this is not enough. The Municipal Corporation comes once a day to clear the garbage. Flies and insects breed on the dirt. The porters pass through the market on bare feet. During the rainy season the condition worsens. There is no proper drainage system and stagnant water collects. Sellers and porters suffer a lot due to their poor income and huge numbers of family members are dependent on them. They live in unhealthy conditions and sleep in the open spaces of the dirty market. Thus they suffer from diseases and during the rainy season and winter they suffer most.

New Market is in Kolkata on Lindsay Street. In 1871 under pressure from English residents the Calcutta Corporation decided to build a market for Calcutta's British residents and bought Lindsay Street. It appointed Richard Roskell Bayne, an architect of the East Indian Railway Company, to design the Victorian Gothic market. Mackintosh Burn was the builder. It opened on 1 January 1874. Sir Stuart Hogg, Chairman of Calcutta Corporation, supported plans to build the market and in1903 it was officially called Sir Stuart Hogg Market, later shortened to Hogg Market. But its early provisional nickname, New Market stayed in use. It was enlarged and a clock tower was shipped over from Huddersfield and installed in the 1930s. Over 2000 stalls sell everything. Vegetable stalls, fishmongers and slaughterhouse butchers are at the very back of the market. It has survived two devastating fires and regular flooding.

Jewish immigration to Calcutta (now Kolkata) began in the early 18th century. Shalom Aharon Obadiah Cohen (1762-1836) was the first to make Calcutta his home in 1798. He left Aleppo in Syria and first went to Surat on the west coast in 1792. He was a successful trader in jewels and precious stones and moved to Calcutta. He was the court jeweller to the Nawab of Awadh, and was asked by him to value to Kohinoor, the plundered diamond, Britain calls the Crown of India. Other Jews followed from Baghdad, Iraq and Isfahan, Iran. By 1835 Calcutta had a thriving Jewish population, which became the centre of the Judeo-Arabic speaking Baghdadi Jewish trading diaspora in Asia, including Rangoon, Singapore, Hong Kong and Shanghai. There were larger Jewish communities in Bombay and the Middle East. They traded in trading in cotton, jute, spices and opium and amassed fabulous wealth, but not all: about 50% of the community in Calcutta were poor. They built 5 synagogues in Calcutta. The first was “Neveh Shalome” in 1831 built by Shalom Obadiah ha–Kohen and was named in memory of his father Shalom ha–Cohen. It was a simple prayer hall between Brabourne Road and Canning Street, where Maghen David Synagogue is now. Neveh Shalome was too small and it was demolished and Magen David Synagogue was built to replace it in 1884. By the end of the 19th century there were 1,800 people. Their identity evolved from Judeo-Arabic to Judeo-British. In 1910 it was decided to rebuild Neveh Shalome Synagogue in vacant land in the Magen David complex. It was kept simple. The Japanese invasion of China, Burma and Singapore resulted in a mass flight of Baghdadi Jews to Kolkata. Many secured refugee status in the United States. With independence of India in 1947, the economy crippled, and the birth of the Jewish state of Israel in 1948 the Jewish population in Calcutta declined, as in other parts of India. They left for London and Israel. Services stopped and the synagogues were neglected. The few people who remained adopted a Judeo-Indian identity. By 1951 only 1,500 Jews remained in Kolkata. It shrank to 700 people by 1969 and barely 200 by the mid-1990s. (In 1997 there were 6,000 Jews living in India; most of the in and around Mumbai). Now there are less than 20 Jews in Kolkata.There is no minyan, no shacharit, and no children. But Shalom’s friendship lives on. The two Jewish schools teach almost only Muslim children, who proudly wear uniforms with the Magen David. The remaining community is restoring the three synagogues that are left. They are the last synagogues of Babylonian Jewry. The Mesopotamian synagogues and cemeteries of Syria and Iraq, where the Baghdadi Jews originated, no longer exist. Neveh Shalaome was repaired and its elegance restored in 2014. Sunni Muslim Anwar Khan from Puri in Odissa is the caretaker

Most Europeans died of malaria and only lasted about two years after arrival. By the mid-18th century, the old Christian burial grounds in the ruins of the first Fort William in Calcutta, established in 1665, was running out of space. So they opened Park Street Cemetery in 1767, in the swampy southern part of the city. It was one of the earliest non-church cemeteries in the world and probably the largest Christian cemetery outside Europe and America in the 19th century. Burials continued until about 1830 and it is now a heritage site protected by the Archaeological Survey of India. Two old iron gates guard the entrance. The memorials are in no particular order but are architecturally striking with classical details and sculptures. There are rows of obelisks and gazebos. The tombs are a mix of Gothic and Indo-Saracenic style. The tomb of Sir William Jones (1746–1794), renowned philologist and founder of Asiatic Society of Bengal, has pride of place bang in the middle of the cemetery. The most beautiful tomb belongs to Charles Stuart (1758- 1828), officer of the East India Company. It is a synthesis of Hindu, European and Islamic styles. He was one of the few British officers to embrace Indian culture. He studied the language, manners and customs of the Indians and was called Hindoo Stuart. Henry Louis Vivian Derozio, the revolutionary thinker and poet is buried close by. He influenced the then Bengali intelligentsia. At 18 he was appointed lecturer in English literature and history at the Hindu College, but was regarded as a trouble maker by the orthodox, Hindu-dominated college management because he encouraged his students to question social evils. He was fired and died shortly afterwards in 1831. A well known business family wanted to turn the cemetery into an arts centre in the early 1980s. Demolition work started in 1984 but Justice Bagbati Banerjee of the Calcutta High Court granted an order to stop the work. However substantial damage had already been done and many graves were lost. The grave of Charles Stuart was destroyed (and later restored) and demolition of Derozio's grave had already begun. Vikram Seth’s 1993 novel, Suitable Boy, Lata strolls through the cemetery with a friend, Amit. They visit the tomb of Rose Aylmer, a Welsh girl who in 1798 sailed to India with her aunt, and died of cholera two years later.

Park Circus railway station is a Kolkata Suburban railway station on the Sealdah–Namkhana line with an approximate 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) distance from Sealdah railway station. Park Circus railway station is one of the busiest railway stations of Sealdah railway division. A large number of people live along the tracks.

The Paraja or Paroja is a small tribe primarily residing in the Koraput and Kalahandi Districts of Orissa (Eastern India). The Paraja appear to be related to the Gond and have many features in common with neighbouring tribes such as the Khond and the Gadaba. This Paraja tribe are hill cultivators found in the district of Koraput, Odisha, India. The Parajas seem to have been inhabiting this country from about the second century of the Christian era.The Paraja speak a Dravidian language called Parji. The Paraja are broadly divided into two sections, the Bada Paraja and the Sana Paraja. The major distinction is that the Bada Paraja follows the Hindu tradition of not eating beef and buffalo meat and observe elaborate purification rituals. The Sana Paraja do not follow this tradition and eat both these animals. The Paraja have exogamous totemic clans. All members of the clans believe in their common mythological origin and therefore marriage between members of the same clans is prohibited. The family is the smallest social unit in Paraja society and is patrilineal and patriarchal. The Paraja village is an organized socio-political system, which functions as an independent autonomous unit. This unit has its own set of functionaries who are in charge of internal and external village affairs. Agriculture is the mainstay of the Paraja's economy. Although traditionally they relied on shift cultivation, today the Parojas depend on wet cultivation. Their economy is also supplemented by forest produce, wage earning, and animal husbandry. The village of Goudaguda produces pottery, which is sold in the nearby market. The Paraja follow a polytheistic religion as well as worship their ancestors.