Bombay

The Bombay Co., a national-chain retailer of replica 18th- and 19th-century British-style furnishings, will open its first "super store" in Maryland tomorrow at The Mall in Columbia.The new super store, located on the second floor at Center Court, will replace a Bombay Co. store, which opened in the mall in July 1986. That store will close today.Eventually all of the company's 400 stores nationwide, including the other nine in Maryland, will be converted to super store status, a company spokesman said.

The Rev. John F. Guidera, a Jesuit missionary who lived in India for six decades while retaining close ties with his Maryland benefactors, died of septicemia May 16 in Jamshedpur. He was 86. Born in Baltimore and raised in Govans, he was a 1943 Loyola High School graduate. He then entered the Jesuit seminary in Wernersville, Pa., and attended Weston College in Weston, Mass. "It was on a November evening in 1950 that the SS Chusan took him to Bombay harbor ... a young Jesuit far from his home in Baltimore, dispatched as a missionary to work for the rest of his life in the land of the poor, the leprotic, the dying and the hungry," a 1986 Evening Sun column said.

BOMBAY, India - The shack had no toilet or even running water. It was infested with mosquitoes. The man sitting on a cot had recently lost his brother, shot dead by police during a riot. I asked the man his opinion of the city he was living in. "Bombay is a Golden Songbird," the slum dweller said, marveling. He was a migrant from the countryside, drawn here like the majority of the population by the seductive call of the Golden Songbird. All the miseries of his life paled in comparison to the possibilities of Bombay, the biggest, fastest, richest city in India; a Maximum City.

A couple of bands that played Virgin Mobile FreeFest are returning to the area on tour next year. The Black Keys will perform at the Verizon Center March 9 as part of their tour to promote new album "El Camino. " The band closed the festival in September with a muscular performance on the main stage. Tickets, starting at $40, go on sale December 9. The album is released three days before. And two days before the Black Keys show, on March 7, Bombay Bicycle Club , the British folk rock five piece, will perform at 9:30 Club in DC.The show is part of their first headlining US tour.

BOMBAY, India -- In Dharavi, an endlessly sprawling, overpoweringly squalid place known as Asia's largest slum, everything is not what it would seem at first.More than 1 million people crouch cheek by jowl along a maze of suffocatingly narrow footpaths. Naked children play in black puddles of stagnant sewage beside tents of rags and corrugated tin huts. A choking stench, unending noise and festering disease are everywhere.But Dharavi may also be Asia's hardest-working slum.TV antennas sprout atop many of its hovels, and small refrigerators are not uncommon inside.

BOMBAY, India -- Ward 1 of the Hinduja Hospital treats male patients with psychiatric and skin disorders, but not of the kind seen here yesterday. There was the man suffering such anguish that he emitted terrified, bone-chilling screams every few minutes. Propped up in beds around him were other dazed-looking patients with fragments of metal embedded in their skin - along their backs, in their arms and legs. This was the aftermath of the worst terrorist attack in India in more than a decade, a series of synchronized explosions along a crowded commuter railway that killed as many as 200 people and wounded hundreds in the country's financial and entertainment capital.

NEW YORK - From the slums of Bombay, Akaash, a young and handsome wannabe actor and singer, crashes the nationally televised Miss India pageant and steals the spotlight, catapulting him into fame as a Bollywood film star. When we next see him, he's wearing a tight, gleaming white outfit, gyrating wildly and singing the infectious "Shakalaka Baby" with an ensemble of brightly clothed dancers and a glamorous diva co-star. Against a whirl of percussion-driven choreography, an explosion of water fountains and soaking-wet saris, Akaash, the "Diamond in the Rough," makes his bid to become a bonafide Bollywood breakout hit. These scenes, from the first night of previews for the new Andrew Lloyd Webber-produced Broadway musical Bombay Dreams earlier this month, brought roars of approval and bursts of applause.

BOMBAY, India -- Lunch hour descends on this humid commercial city, and the anarchic hustle begins.A thousand men pour from the old British train stations, all shouldering the same shiny cargo and all wearing the same frantic stare. They glance at their watches, mount their bikes and disperse into the traffic and heat.Minutes later, in an air-conditioned office, Rajesh Sori takes his // delivery: a six-course lunch, spirited from the suburbs so carefully that his favorite Indian foods, dal and chapati, still glow with the warmth of home.

BOMBAY, India -- Along Marine Drive, a sweeping ocean promenade ringed by fading art-deco buildings, lovers gather along the sea wall, kissing and caressing each other, seemingly oblivious to the showers of sea spray and frenetic traffic around them. Couples publicly displaying their affection may seem out of place here, where traditionally the first time a bride saw her groom was on the conjugal bed. But as a new sexual permissiveness has seized this cramped city of 18 million, Bombay's chronic housing problem is forcing many seeking passion out to the city's few scenic spots.

NEW DELHI -- With frightening precision, eight explosions in rapid succession struck a busy commuter railway last night in Bombay, the financial capital of India, and turning the rush hour into a grisly tableau of carnage. The Press Trust of India news agency said early today that authorities had increased the toll to 190 killed and 625 injured. In what officials said was a well-coordinated attack, the blasts went off within minutes of each other in trains and on platforms along the length of a rail line carrying thousands of passengers home to the western and northern suburbs of Bombay.

Harbor East's Teavolve (1401 Aliceanna St., 410-522-1907) has opened, and it's so much not a traditional tearoom. First of all, by the time you read this, Teavolve should have a liquor license. Co-owner Sunni Gilliam says she applied for one because she wanted to serve tea-infused and fresh-fruit-puree cocktails. "We have to have it by Friday," she adds. "We have a party of 200 coming in for cocktails." The new place is more of a lounge and much bigger than the first location, which is now open only for private parties of 20 or more.

Louisiana in Fells Point has bought the Full Moon Saloon next door at 1710 Aliceanna St., and renovations are in full swing. The fine-dining New Orleans restaurant plans to open a live jazz and blues club there, which will serve lunch and a light menu at dinnertime. "Everybody likes to have a meal under 20 bucks," said Louisiana's John Saki. When I asked him what the name of the club will be and when it might open, he said, "I hope you'll ask me some of these questions two weeks down the road."

NEW DELHI, India -- Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said yesterday that this week's railway bombings in Bombay had support from "elements across the border" in Pakistan, escalating the war of words between the nuclear-armed neighbors and further casting a pall over the possibility of peace between them. On a visit to survivors of Tuesday's synchronized blasts, Singh accused Islamabad of falling down on its pledge not "to promote, encourage, aid and abet terrorism," saying that "that assurance has to be fulfilled before the peace process and other processes progress."

Bombay, India -- Under intense pressure to show progress, authorities identified their first suspects yesterday and detained about 20 people for questioning in connection with this week's deadly railway bombings. Indian news media broadcast photos of two men believed to be linked to Tuesday's string of rush-hour blasts along Bombay's crowded western commuter line, an attack that killed as many as 200 people and wounded hundreds more. But there were conflicting reports as to the suspects' names, and authorities provided no background on the men or details on what their roles might have been.

BOMBAY, India -- Ward 1 of the Hinduja Hospital treats male patients with psychiatric and skin disorders, but not of the kind seen here yesterday. There was the man suffering such anguish that he emitted terrified, bone-chilling screams every few minutes. Propped up in beds around him were other dazed-looking patients with fragments of metal embedded in their skin - along their backs, in their arms and legs. This was the aftermath of the worst terrorist attack in India in more than a decade, a series of synchronized explosions along a crowded commuter railway that killed as many as 200 people and wounded hundreds in the country's financial and entertainment capital.

NEW DELHI -- With frightening precision, eight explosions in rapid succession struck a busy commuter railway last night in Bombay, the financial capital of India, and turning the rush hour into a grisly tableau of carnage. The Press Trust of India news agency said early today that authorities had increased the toll to 190 killed and 625 injured. In what officials said was a well-coordinated attack, the blasts went off within minutes of each other in trains and on platforms along the length of a rail line carrying thousands of passengers home to the western and northern suburbs of Bombay.

More than 300 slaves were returned to their families in southern Sudan last month after their freedom was purchased with money raised by a Canadian television evangelical show and other groups, a co-host of the Canadian show said yesterday.Cal Bombay, vice president of Crossroads Christian Communications Inc. (CCCI), said that on March 12, he witnessed the freeing of the 319 slaves in southern Sudan -- including 200 whose freedom was purchased with funds raised by his show.Some of the women slaves said they had been forcibly circumcised, said Bombay, who flew with his cameraman into southern Sudan on March 12 and filmed the release of the slaves who had been returned to the village of Manyiel.

Becker Group opens area Christmas storesThe Becker Group, a Baltimore-based company that has decked the malls of America for nearly 40 Christmases, has finally succumbed to the selling bug.Last week, the company launched its new retail division by opening S. Claus Collection stores at Owings Mills Town Center and Towson Town Center. The stores will carry an assortment of Christmas merchandise, as well as gift items.The seasonal stores, which will be open from late October through Dec. 31, are a pilot project for The Becker Group, said Marsha Becker, director of S. Claus Collection and wife of company President Gordon Becker.

Resurgent rains in India hamper search for bodies BOMBAY, India - Renewed downpours lashed Bombay yesterday, slowing efforts to retrieve bodies as the death toll crept toward 1,000 after six days of rains that have paralyzed India's financial capital. Floodwaters poured into houses in Bombay's northern suburbs, as navy divers tried to rescue people in low-lying areas. Residents were ordered to stay home for a second straight day as heavy rains, which began late Sunday, pounded western India.

BOMBAY, India - The shack had no toilet or even running water. It was infested with mosquitoes. The man sitting on a cot had recently lost his brother, shot dead by police during a riot. I asked the man his opinion of the city he was living in. "Bombay is a Golden Songbird," the slum dweller said, marveling. He was a migrant from the countryside, drawn here like the majority of the population by the seductive call of the Golden Songbird. All the miseries of his life paled in comparison to the possibilities of Bombay, the biggest, fastest, richest city in India; a Maximum City.