In Photos: Mumbai’s Workspaces You May Have Seen But Never Noticed

Glimpses of the city you’ve seen, but never stopped to notice. Through Instagrammer Gopal MS, here you have it.

The office of a pedestrian subway’s proud caretaker.

(Photo courtesy: Gopal MS/Instagram)

Gopal MS insists that he is a blogger, but his photo documentation of Mumbai, and often the old city of Bombay, on Instagram says otherwise. The photos on his profile, which has over 24,000 followers, aren’t what you would expect when one says ‘street photography’. More than scenes, he captures glimpses, sign boards, menus and graffiti and people doing mundane tasks amid chaos in an overwhelmingly honest way, with a few hashtags he has created and keeps adding to.

Trees with religious red strings go under #TreesOfMumbai, and vandalism as street art goes under #AamArtistGallery.

For this curation of Quint Lens, we browsed through hundreds of Gopal’s photos under #WorkspaceMumbai, which documents informal and small jobs done by lakhs of people that make the city what it is.

Through Gopal’s simple point-and-shoot and keen eye, here you have it – Mumbai paused.

Spotted: Traffic Warden at work(Photo courtesy: Gopal MS/Instagram)

Spotted: A Zoroastrian calendar at a homeopathic pharmacy (Photo courtesy: Gopal MS/Instagram)

Hot samosas for traders waiting on a footpath, at a daily wage workers’ market in Vashi, Navi Mumbai (Photo courtesy: Gopal MS/Instagram)

To note: The water mug at the chaiwallah (Photo courtesy: Gopal MS/Instagram)

The office of a pedestrian subway’s proud caretaker (Photo courtesy: Gopal MS/Instagram)

Stones and imitation jewellery being sorted to be reused at Zaveri Bazaar (Photo courtesy: Gopal MS/Instagram)

Marketing level: Kulfi (Photo courtesy: Gopal MS/Instagram)

‘Good luck’ lemons, chillies and charcoal for sale at a traffic light (Photo courtesy: Gopal MS/Instagram)

Carving name boards and gravestones (Photo courtesy: Gopal MS/Instagram)

The wait at a daily wage workers’ market (Photo courtesy: Gopal MS/Instagram)

The making of papad (Photo courtesy: Gopal MS/Instagram)

Chachas who sell mutton for the most important family meal of the week: the Sunday lunch (Photo courtesy: Gopal MS/Instagram)

A vintage HM car from the 50s at a local garage-wallah’s, who supplies cars for films (Photo courtesy: Gopal MS/Instagram)

A datoon-wallah waits for customers to buy his teeth-cleaning Neem twigs (Photo courtesy: Gopal MS/Instagram)

Selling cakes, the old-school way (Photo courtesy: Gopal MS/Instagram)

You can see more of Gopal’s photographs from this series and several other projects of his on Instagram (@mumbaipaused).