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Senior Bombay High Court lawyer Gautam Patel wrote in his column in Mumbai Mirror (MM) of September 24, 2010 that Bombay is an easy city to love, a hard one to hate. So when a friend introduced him to the photography of Sharookh Mehta, who has been quietly documenting the city in his photograph album called "A moment in the life of Mumbai” on Face­book, Patel was delighted.

Mehta, a director of the well-known firm of Talati and Panthaky, is an architect who has been in the field of interior and industrial design for over two decades, as per his bio data. Mehta, who has been associated with The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation in the USA, has designed architecture of large scale healthcare facilities in India. He believes that any structure should be "a complete work of art” down to the last detail. When Parsi­ana spoke to him over the telephone he said he has been a keen photographer for 30 years, but started his online photo album on Bombay about three years ago.

Sharookh Mehta, and below, his photograph of dhobi ghat

Patel writes in his column about Mehta’s works: "Most of the photographs, certainly the best ones, are in black and white, but all are exquisitely realized. Each one tells a story, or a fragment of a story, and it’s one of the hundreds of daily stories that make our city. Dancers in processions, their energy and noise jumping off the page; a huge crowd streaming down a street; street boys mugging for the camera or playing in water; the arch of clothing and the sparkle of water at dhobi ghat; the steam rising off pots and cooking vessels in a small eatery, a fisherman tossing a basket of daily catch to someone — it’s all there, frozen in time, the life of the city captured and preserved.”

A selection from Sharookh Mehta’s online photo album on everyday life in Bombay

Mehta, who adds to the album from time to time, does not idealize his images. He explores the "everyday, the everyman, things that are around us; the ordinary, the plain, the tacky and the sleazy, and in each of these (he) finds elements of fascination, matters that intrigue,” notes Patel who explains that Mehta is not expressing himself in these images. For him "every person is equally interesting, regardless of who he or she is, or what he or she is doing. They are of interest for one reason, and that is because they are part of the city. They are the city, and it is a city that Mehta clearly loves and respects. This affection and kindness comes through in every image. Mehta’s images make incandescent the ordinary lives of an extraordinary city,” Patel concludes.