Mumbai is that dichotomous situation everyone imagines when they think of India. It's like it was made to be that way. And it is so accepted - it is the way of life here in India.
I still love trains - it is my favorite way to travel. We usually travel in the sleeper class (no AC, no bedding, just open windows and strangers) and this time was no exception. The night we left Lingampally:
The only thing that changed was that this was our longest trip yet - 16 hours on a constantly moving train. But we made it, only to emerge in an incredibly beautiful, rhythmic, well-oiled city with a distinct look and feel. Mumbai is packed, and Mumbai is constantly moving. It didn't matter the time of day, or the heat - there are people everywhere. 20 million in fact. And they are all different.
Mumbai evoked several different emotions from me, some not until I was taking my last look at Mumbai through the window of a speeding train, sitting in a car with multiple screaming children.
We arrived at the same train station that the scenes from Slumdog Millionare occurred in. It is a beautiful relic left over from the British, originally known as the Victoria Terminus. It now has an Indian name, another attempt at removing any traces of British rule, but nobody uses that name.
Inside was busy. Very busy.
Sorry everything seems to be a little bit off-centered...
The first thing we did was try our hand at chasing buses, because Mumbai, of all places, has double decker buses, that I stupidly did not get a picture of.
Riane almost got bowled over - she has a knack for suicidal street crossing missions, but the drivers in India have a knack for homicidal driving.
I wouldn't doubt if Riane has a bruise on her elbows from me yanking her out of the road. It isn't carelessness - you can stand in a tree and people would find a way to run you over. You have to try crossing the road at the smallest break or you won't get anywhere.
The bus let us off at Colaba Market and we were immediately found by a group of young men trying to get commission by showing us various hotels. We humored one of them for a little bit, following him and looking at his suggestions - but Mumbai is pricey for what it provides and we were not going to pay the absolutely absurd prices of no AC, a shared bathroom, and definitely unhygienic living for rs. 800 ($16 total each night). We knew what we wanted for the most part and started out towards our desired dwellings when we had the very scary occasion of watching our hotel finder fall down into seizure on the sidewalk while handing us a business card.
As I watched this man writhe on the sidewalk, I quickly lost faith in Indian humanity. A business man walked by on his cell phone - he said to leave him alone, he would be ok. A security guard peeked over the crowd surrounding us, and walked away. One man stuck a shoe under our helper's nose, another tried to pry open his hands and put keys in them. A group of men continued to sit on stools in front of the alleyway we were a few feet from. I asked for the hospital, I asked for the emergency numbers, I asked for help, I asked what was wrong, Riane searched through our info for any emergency information our travel guide might have had, I glared and cursed the bystanders for not doing anything but watch this man, foam at the mouth, every limb rigid, suffer on the sidewalk.
A few minutes later, his body relaxed, and as he seemed to want to throw up, I wanted to turn him on his side. This is what you do for unconscious drunk people so they don't choke on their own vomit, but they told me to leave him alone. I couldn't really go against it. I was in a strange city, one of two girls surrounded by men, in a country where women are not equal to men, where physical contact is suggestive, with no clue as to why people grasp their temples and have seizures in the middle of the day.
Getting closer to him than kneeling could have been a very bad decision.
We waited until he was standing with some help and offered him food, water, AC - he wanted none of it. His friend said that if we gave them rs. 100 they could get him help. We are not stupid - $2 was not getting this man anywhere. They refused everything we offered - we even offered to take him to the hospital. He wanted a cigarette, his friends wanted money. We left them sitting on the curb.
We don't know how the social system works here - we have no clue if the hospital would have seen him, how it would have been paid for, what could be done for a man who clearly lives on the street.
We left them because there was nothing else for us to do. You can only offer so much.
And this, besides gorgeous architecture and masses of humanity swarming the sidewalks, streets, trains, restaurants, was my introduction to Mumbai. I had known when I decided I wanted to go to Mumbai, I would dislike it, just as I dislike every Indian city I go to. And it is pure selfishness.
I wanted to come to India to discover what the world is really like, not what the world is to a small privileged girl who grew up in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, who got an actual pony for Christmas one year, who spent her time being molded into a disciplined gymnast in a chosen profession by the best coaches in the world.
The world is not so nice to everyone - my birth into the life I lead was pure chance. I am not different than these people, the people I don't want to look at - I am ashamed of that.
I hate India for showing me exactly what I hate seeing. Sometimes my once naive self longs to be naive again. I never thought the world would be as cruel as I have seen it be. I've read about in the paper, in books, in pictures.
I hate that I am here watching, studying, sleeping, talking, listening, bargaining, eating with many of the people that I will never ever know the lives of. I will never know what life is to them. I am merely an observer, and for no particular reason, and I will never ever understand that. I couldn't even make the decision to live as one of them, to adopt their thoughts, their ways. I have known a different world - I think and see and reason differently. That wouldn't disappear no matter how I tried.
We were there for 4 days and 3 nights. We stayed in a single room with a bath attached above a shoe store, with no air conditioning, where when we got there, 2 men were asleep on our bed under the fan and open windows. We had them change the sheets and for rs. 1200 ($24) a night, we stayed at the Apollo Guest House over the city of Mumbai, in the Colaba district.
We took the rest of the day easy. Took a long walk to the water, did a little bit of sight seeing, got a taste of local flavor, watched a local band play at a jazz club and just took in the city of Mumbai.
A few things we saw:
awkward tourist picture in front of the Gateway of India
I've never been to Europe, but this plaza felt very European - pigeons, tourists, street vendors (that run when police come near)
This is the Taj Palace, the hotel where the Mumbai terrorist attacks/bombings occurred in 2008.
A man feeding fish to a large number of cats. I love this man.
We walked all the way to Chowpatty Beach, which is similar to an everyday carnival. The icees were an interesting choice, ice on a stick dipped into a cup of syrup...
We did dinner at a jazz club, listened to a local band sing covers, sang along to the strangest "jazz" choices we had ever heard, marveled at the alcohol tax, and went home.
Overnight hot trains are tough to deal with.
We put out our cocoons, showered, and laid as still and flat as possible to get the air from the fan.
We were impossibly hot and sticky the entire time.
Thus ends Day 1.
