A city of opposites...

When considering Geography itself I have always regarded it as a subject full of opposites. The most predominant of those is probably the contrast between physical and human geography, but other examples include rural/urban, erosion/deposition, pollution/recycling, plus many more.  

However, the topic of geography that has also fascinated me the most is the intricate relationship that develops between these areas of contrast. Take for instance people that chose to inhabitant areas of potential natural disaster as well as the boundary between where rural starts and urban ends.

Therefore, having been a topic that has always kept me spellbound, it comes to no surprise that the first thing I noticed when exploring Mumbai was that it really is a city of opposites. Everywhere you look you see a contrast of different worlds colliding and I have never been to a place where it is more apparent and overwhelming than Mumbai.  It is not just a case of two different things spotted in one place but it is the incredible proximity of such contrasting lives and environments operating so closely together. Below are a series of photos I have taken to try and illustrate some of the opposites that I have spotted so far:

Tropical/Urban - Mumbai is a sprawling urban centre with a tropical forest existing within it.
I have already had the privilege of seeing Flying Fox Bats, Black Kites and Parakeets flying above some of it's busiest roads. 

New/Old - Dilapidated ruins of buildings stand next to beautifully restored ones such as this new hospital along Marine Drive. 

Poor/Rich - The poorer area at the front of the photo is a huge outdoor laundry that washes the clothes of the city high fliers who work in the modern skyscrapers that dominate the skyline in the background. 

Modern/Traditional - Western food outlets are beginning to compete with the traditional Bombay food stalls that line the streets. 

Vibrant/Dull - For me it is the vibrancy of the culture and people in Mumbai that often adds a beauty to sometimes run down and tired looking buildings. 

Pollution/Recycling - Mumbai is full of cars and other motor vehicles and the air is often thick with pollution and fumes. However recycling in India is on a different scale, everything has another use to someone else and the streets first thing in the morning are often full of people carrying huge loads of collected plastic and glass.

Classroom Activity

A fun way to get students to compare opposites in geography is to present them with a series images on a projector that they can then discuss as a class as to what contrasts they think it shows. Or a more creative activity is to get the students themselves to think of opposites that feature in geographical topics; from this they can create images to represent the word opposites e.g. a coin for rich compared to a sheet of tarpaulin for poor, or a mountain for uplift and a river for vertical erosion. Once they have made their images on some paper or card (and not included the opposite word on it,) they must swap them with someone else to see if they can match together the opposite images and guess the words.