In search of Bishtis, Mumbai's vanishing water tribe

"You want to meet bhishtis?" asks my cab driver Tiwari, his lips red from chewing paan. "Why didn't you tell me earlier? There'll be a bunch of them in front of the masjid at Pydhonie."

On the ride to Pydhonie the cabbie regales me with facts about bhishtis and of his hometown Allahabad in Uttar Pradesh.

"We call them mashaqs," Tiwari says. "They have to pay cops in order to get some parking space for their patras (small water tankers that the bhishtis tow around). Bambai mein madney ko bhi baitho toh policewaaley aur BMC aakar kehtey hain, mar rahey ho? Pahley paisa do," chuckles Tiwari.
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Xenia Seeberg Yamila Diaz Yvonne Strzechowski Zhang Ziyi Zoe Saldana Zooey Deschanel