Marooned began as a rant. Inspired by Namdeo Dhasal's poems on Kamathipura, Bombay's infamous red-light district, it explores my changing relationship with a city I once knew intimately but gradually came to feel estranged from. It was also a period when the pace and direction of Bombay’s transformation left me feeling increasingly alienated. Marooned was born from that emotional conflict. It carries anger, frustration, and, at times, even resentment. I began to feel that the city was slowly being erased, almost deliberately. Old neighbourhoods lost their character, and it often felt as though nobody cared enough for the city. I couldn't shake the feeling that Bombay had been left to fend for itself.

As this transformation occurred, I found myself retreating into its overlooked spaces: the narrow alleys of Kamathipura, forgotten neighbourhoods, and the lives pushed to the margins. There, among sex workers, labourers, drifters, and those society prefers not to see, I encountered moments of vulnerability, intimacy, and an unexpected sense of belonging. These encounters revealed a Bombay that existed beyond its celebrated image—a city carrying its wounds in plain sight while the world looked elsewhere. In hindsight, I understand that anger as grief.