Stick No Bills

On the streets of Mumbai, electrical boxes become unintentional canvases. Their surfaces hold torn bills, scraps of tape and paper that lift in the heat. They echo the city’s rhythm, chaotic yet alive, patched, improvised and always adapting. Each box becomes a symbol of time, survival, a record of systems and the people who depend on them. What began as hidden infrastructure, has entered the city’s visual language, carrying its fragility, its resilience and its layered stories.

For many who live and work outdoors, these cabinets turn into tools and companions. A hinged door becomes a cupboard, a flat top becomes a table, a square face becomes a noticeboard or a surface for a photograph. A fruit seller rests her baskets against one, a cobbler shapes leather beside another, a boy learning to mend cycles leans on a third. Over time, the boxes gather the quiet grammar of the street, from dents shaped by elbows to locks worn smooth by habit.

Because they are everywhere, they also serve as open platforms for communication. Handwritten notes, torn flyers, ads for work, political stickers and glossy posters layer themselves until the boxes read like small public billboards. Some messages are planned, others improvised; all turning private needs into public text. What stays is how the inert becomes expressive. In their scratches and posters, the city writes brief biographies of movement, resilience and daily survival, revealing how a place keeps itself going with untidy, resourceful beauty.