The parent and child set the same hairstyle

Walking through the bustle of Mumbai, I came across a father and son seated by the roadside. The father wore a plain white shirt, while the boy, still very young, had a neatly tied necktie. Looking at the two of them together, I noticed their hairstyles were identical—both parted neatly to the side. It was, in its own way, the invisible thread linking father and son, though they themselves were likely unaware of it. Mumbai, as a city, seems scattered with countless such small coincidences in daily life.

When I raised my camera, the father offered a quiet smile. Whether he was simply accustomed to being photographed or just naturally warm-hearted, I could not tell. The son, however, refused to meet the lens, instead gazing somewhere above as if lost in another world. The contrast was striking: the same hairstyle connecting them, yet their eyes never meeting. That imbalance was what made the scene all the more interesting. Parents and children often share certain traits while diverging in others, and this was a perfect reminder.

In India, too, the parent-child relationship is layered and complex. In a metropolis like Mumbai, tradition and modernity, wealth and hardship, coexist side by side. The boy’s necktie might be seen as a symbol of education and of hopes for the future—or perhaps that’s just my own imagination at work. Perhaps there was no symbolism at all, and they had simply asked for the same cut at the barber’s. Yet as travelers, we have a tendency to weave narratives into the most ordinary of scenes. And perhaps that, too, is part of the charm of walking through Mumbai.