As I was walking, a large gray gate suddenly blocked my path

Walking through a backstreet in Mumbai, I suddenly found my way blocked by a large gray gate. True to Indian eclecticism, the surface was crowded with English, Hindi, and Devanagari lettering. In the very center, a bold red warning read NO PARKING. A little further down, in a sterner register, it declared: “Trespassers Will Be Prosecuted.” Apparently this belonged to a stonework shop called “Marble Art.” The heavy gate itself had a kind of ornamental presence, while the blunt messages scrawled across it gave the whole thing a clumsy sort of harmony.

That uncompromising phrase—prosecuted!—felt almost comical against the backdrop of Indian expansiveness. In Mumbai’s backstreets, order is a foreign language; cows, people, and motorbikes all wander through as they please. To insist, in such a place, that unauthorized entry will be met with legal action is like a child planting a sign in a sandbox.

Beside the gate, a man sat on a chair, his shirt stained red-brown with sweat. He seemed to be watching the passersby, guarding the gate like a loyal dog. Then again, whether he was truly posted as a sentry or simply enjoying a smoke in the shade was impossible to tell. In Mumbai, it is often hard to distinguish between working and resting.

As a traveler, I felt the tug of curiosity—what lay beyond that forbidding barrier? And yet the word prosecuted did its work; I couldn’t bring myself to step inside. I stayed at the entrance, smiling to myself at the odd spectacle of strict legality and everyday disorder standing cheek by jowl in an Indian alleyway.

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