This is My Love Letter to Mumbai
As you may have heard by now, terrorists set off 7 bombs on crowded rush-hour commuter trains in Mumbai, India yesterday. Almost 200 killed; more than 700 wounded. Places I loved in India being bombed is starting to feel like a recurring theme in my life: first a restaurant I'd eaten at in the Old City section of Varanasi; then the Jama Masjid temple I'd visited in Delhi. Now Mumbai, the bustling, chaotic, beautiful city I fell hard for...and enjoyed so much that I changed my travel plans just so I could come back for a few more days.
I feel almost an obligation to talk about the city and the time I spent there...as if that will make any of it any better. As if that will fix a damn thing. An ode to Mumbai, a love letter of sorts, is all I've got right now.
Mumbai. Equal parts modernity and old world magic; the glamour of Bollywood side by side with some of the worst slums in the world. Embracing the West, with its malls and movie theaters, but ultimately rejecting it in favor of uniquely Indian homegrown desi-cool. (Desi, loosely translated, means local...but so much more.)
Mumbai was when I started really having fun on my trip. Where I started to learn to roll with the punches in India, to start to laugh when I was once more frustrated, befuddled, confused, or even cheated...instead of crying. It's where I started to really appreciate the culture. In Mumbai I embraced everything Western I found - true bliss, after almost two months travelling through rural India - and yet came to love all things India that much more for the comparison.
I arrived in Mumbai after a taxing 24 hour bus ride, and I instantly ran to the first "modern cafe" (I'd heard they had them here!) to pick up a real Western breakfast. Coffee (coffee!), french toast, a newspaper in my hand and, strangely enough, the Oscars on the television.
I appreciated Mumbai for the food: pizza (not the best, but passable), the first chicken I'd had in a month, brownies, western-style sandwiches and pasta and, of course, breakfasts. A "grocery store" where I could buy Cheddar cheese (well, sort of) and walnuts, strangely enough the two food items I had be craving the most. All the foods were pale imitations of their western counterparts, but after a month and a half of all Indian food all the time, it was like manna from heaven.
I met an amazing group of girls at the hostel where I was staying, and for the first time in awhile, felt like I had a real group of friends...if only for a few days. We toured the city, shared laughter and swapped stories over meals, caught a few Bollywood flicks and even tried our hand at "dressing up" and going to one of the famed Bombay clubs.
The markets and bazaars where hectic, crazy, even a little scary. I learned to haggle. I learned to tell someone off, and mean it enough that they'd actually leave me a lone. I spent one day with a girl I'd met in the hostel (Jo), learning to take the public train system (the same one that got bombed) to the 'non-touristy' parts of the city, getting amazingly lost but having a great time. The hawkers were pushy: they would surround us, block our paths, not let us through, until we either bought something or caused a real scene. We were on the lookout for a "sporting goods store" -- I wanted a new Nalgene to replace the one I'd lost, and she was looking for some camping gear. It ended up being a small office where the owner had a bunch of equipment in boxes...you told him what you wanted and he got it out for you! (Sadly, there were no fancy water bottles; the seller informed me that 'in India they like to use cheap bottles" and held up a disposable plastic drinking bottle. )
One evening, Jo & I went to Chowpatty Beach, a famous evening hang-out. Chowpatty is famous for its "Bhelpuri," a snack made with puffed rice, onions, lemon, cilantro, some other stuff...and a sauce...tastier than it sounds, I promise. When you head to the food area, the vendors literally MOB you. We had at least 20 people shouting at us "bhel puri, bhel puri" - here madam - come here - over here...one guy whipped out a table and chair for us...and then we realized they didn't even sell bhelpuri at that shop. We finally managed to escape the mob and find a place to sit, but it was one of those distinctly Indian chaotic, hilarious situations.
(Chowpatty is also known for its "Head Massagers" - vaguely creepy and incredibly persistent men that will come up to you offering a "very good head massage" for some number of rupees. We both passed -- what sort of qualifications do you need to be a head massager, anyway?)
In Mumbai the young men all ride around on their motorbikes, yapping into their cell phones. The woman, at least those with money, are dressed to kill. There is money here, big money. And yet there is so much poverty. The city is filled with huge slums; the railroad tracks are inevitably lined with these pockets of extreme poverty. (Catch a morning train through the city, and you can see the people lined up, using the dykes of the train tracks as their restroom, sacrificing their privacy, carrying out their morning ablutions in open view, because they've nowhere else to do it.)
I came across the following line in a news story:
The people who live in small houses at the side of the track came out to help the injured, too. They carried sheets and saris out for makeshift stretchers and took water to the injured.
What the article doesn't point out that many people living in these slums only have one sheet, one spare sari. They brought out what may have been one of their only possessions and gave them over willingly, knowing that there would not be stretchers, knowing that these supplies were needed to get the injured to hospitals.
Mumbai claws at you. It will not let you be. Even back in your hotel room, the sounds carry from this city that does not sleep. It seduces you with its promise of making it big (attractive young men and women travel from across India in the hopes of being cast in a Bollywood Blockbuster; the down-on-their-luck come from all over their country in the hopes of finding fortune in the country's financial capital) and then refuses to let you fall to your knees, even if you think you haven't got anything left.
The articles in the press have been filled with tales of Mumbai's resilience, it's indomitable spirit, it's refusal to be cowed or to be slowed. Mumbai has weathered attacks like these before, massive flooding, natural disasters, civil unrest...and it's always back to work the next day.
And I know in my heart it's all true; of any city I've ever been to, I cannot see this city being stopped.
I feel almost an obligation to talk about the city and the time I spent there...as if that will make any of it any better. As if that will fix a damn thing. An ode to Mumbai, a love letter of sorts, is all I've got right now.
Mumbai. Equal parts modernity and old world magic; the glamour of Bollywood side by side with some of the worst slums in the world. Embracing the West, with its malls and movie theaters, but ultimately rejecting it in favor of uniquely Indian homegrown desi-cool. (Desi, loosely translated, means local...but so much more.)
Mumbai was when I started really having fun on my trip. Where I started to learn to roll with the punches in India, to start to laugh when I was once more frustrated, befuddled, confused, or even cheated...instead of crying. It's where I started to really appreciate the culture. In Mumbai I embraced everything Western I found - true bliss, after almost two months travelling through rural India - and yet came to love all things India that much more for the comparison.
I arrived in Mumbai after a taxing 24 hour bus ride, and I instantly ran to the first "modern cafe" (I'd heard they had them here!) to pick up a real Western breakfast. Coffee (coffee!), french toast, a newspaper in my hand and, strangely enough, the Oscars on the television.
I appreciated Mumbai for the food: pizza (not the best, but passable), the first chicken I'd had in a month, brownies, western-style sandwiches and pasta and, of course, breakfasts. A "grocery store" where I could buy Cheddar cheese (well, sort of) and walnuts, strangely enough the two food items I had be craving the most. All the foods were pale imitations of their western counterparts, but after a month and a half of all Indian food all the time, it was like manna from heaven.
I met an amazing group of girls at the hostel where I was staying, and for the first time in awhile, felt like I had a real group of friends...if only for a few days. We toured the city, shared laughter and swapped stories over meals, caught a few Bollywood flicks and even tried our hand at "dressing up" and going to one of the famed Bombay clubs.
The markets and bazaars where hectic, crazy, even a little scary. I learned to haggle. I learned to tell someone off, and mean it enough that they'd actually leave me a lone. I spent one day with a girl I'd met in the hostel (Jo), learning to take the public train system (the same one that got bombed) to the 'non-touristy' parts of the city, getting amazingly lost but having a great time. The hawkers were pushy: they would surround us, block our paths, not let us through, until we either bought something or caused a real scene. We were on the lookout for a "sporting goods store" -- I wanted a new Nalgene to replace the one I'd lost, and she was looking for some camping gear. It ended up being a small office where the owner had a bunch of equipment in boxes...you told him what you wanted and he got it out for you! (Sadly, there were no fancy water bottles; the seller informed me that 'in India they like to use cheap bottles" and held up a disposable plastic drinking bottle. )
One evening, Jo & I went to Chowpatty Beach, a famous evening hang-out. Chowpatty is famous for its "Bhelpuri," a snack made with puffed rice, onions, lemon, cilantro, some other stuff...and a sauce...tastier than it sounds, I promise. When you head to the food area, the vendors literally MOB you. We had at least 20 people shouting at us "bhel puri, bhel puri" - here madam - come here - over here...one guy whipped out a table and chair for us...and then we realized they didn't even sell bhelpuri at that shop. We finally managed to escape the mob and find a place to sit, but it was one of those distinctly Indian chaotic, hilarious situations.
(Chowpatty is also known for its "Head Massagers" - vaguely creepy and incredibly persistent men that will come up to you offering a "very good head massage" for some number of rupees. We both passed -- what sort of qualifications do you need to be a head massager, anyway?)
In Mumbai the young men all ride around on their motorbikes, yapping into their cell phones. The woman, at least those with money, are dressed to kill. There is money here, big money. And yet there is so much poverty. The city is filled with huge slums; the railroad tracks are inevitably lined with these pockets of extreme poverty. (Catch a morning train through the city, and you can see the people lined up, using the dykes of the train tracks as their restroom, sacrificing their privacy, carrying out their morning ablutions in open view, because they've nowhere else to do it.)
I came across the following line in a news story:
The people who live in small houses at the side of the track came out to help the injured, too. They carried sheets and saris out for makeshift stretchers and took water to the injured.
What the article doesn't point out that many people living in these slums only have one sheet, one spare sari. They brought out what may have been one of their only possessions and gave them over willingly, knowing that there would not be stretchers, knowing that these supplies were needed to get the injured to hospitals.
Mumbai claws at you. It will not let you be. Even back in your hotel room, the sounds carry from this city that does not sleep. It seduces you with its promise of making it big (attractive young men and women travel from across India in the hopes of being cast in a Bollywood Blockbuster; the down-on-their-luck come from all over their country in the hopes of finding fortune in the country's financial capital) and then refuses to let you fall to your knees, even if you think you haven't got anything left.
The articles in the press have been filled with tales of Mumbai's resilience, it's indomitable spirit, it's refusal to be cowed or to be slowed. Mumbai has weathered attacks like these before, massive flooding, natural disasters, civil unrest...and it's always back to work the next day.
And I know in my heart it's all true; of any city I've ever been to, I cannot see this city being stopped.
posted by Melissa at 10:16 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home