Day Two: Mumbai and I

The morning started with a quick walk across the street to see Mumbai's Indian Gate. The actual walking was fine, but there were huuuuge balloons that were attached to these guys who kept wanting to sell their balloons to us. Apparently they lost the need for the particularly large and unuseful balloons. No upcoming birthdays. Sorry buddy. The arch was basically a bigger version of the Arc de Triumph with quite a bit of scaffolding. Our next stop was the courtyard of Bombay University and some adjacent courthouse. The funny thing about the courthouse was that it had so many legal files that were piled outside, in the courtroom and wherever else there was space. Literally just piles - no shelves, no order, just stacks of papers. Must be terribly difficult to find Docket 24.A.19 People v. American Guy Who Took Pictures in Courthouse.

The morning rush at Victoria Train Station was just that. Throngs of people arriving and departing, crowding the cars until they became over-packed. Just fascinating to watch. Yes, I've been to many train stations before, but this was unlike a European depot or Chicago's Metra. The design of the outside of the station was even more impressive. Think castle, grand palace.

We rushed ourselves to see the dabba walla in full swing. These guys are the Bruce Lees of food delivery. Minus the kung fu but with the same expedited seriousness. And hopefully with a tinge less vengeance. Sound simple? Not quite. After studying it as a somewhat official observer for a few minutes, I still didn't get how it works so efficiently. Here's the scenario:
-Mom/wife packs you a yummy lunch of your favorite curries and maybe even a note with Ganesha on it for good luck. The same guy you've seen day after day, year after year, comes and picks up the lunch in the morning, wearing his sailor-like hat, makes his rounds and congregates with all the other tiffenmen on the main thoroughfare across the street from one of the other main train terminals.
- Some local runners put the different to-go lunches on every inch of a bicycle, but more common are the long trays of about 4' x 6' that is carried on their heads, put into the luggage car of a train and then, upon the train reaching its destination, relayed to the team responsible for actually hand delivering the food.
The process is crazy, but they swear by it. I thought it would just be easier to carry your own lunch to work, but was told that it was too tightly packed on the trains to facilitate everyone bring aboard a sack lunch. Seems like a lot of work for lunch, but it's practical for them.

Crawford Market was our next stop. This bizaar mainly offered a wide array of food products. Eggs, watermelons, mangoes, apples, strawberries - the list goes on. Walking further brings out the more peculiar offerings: poultry, fowl, ducks, mangy cats and mice. No, not as a result of the filth, the cats and mice were in cages to be sold. Under the main covering was much of the same as well as the spice markets. I bought chicken tikka spices and a wetish but really good smelling spices. I'm excited to use them - or at least smell them.

We visited two more places before the end of the day. Another common service, similar in style to the dabba walla is the dhobi. These guys are the pro-bowlers of the laundry service league. Spread across a few acres, this service provides regular cleaning for much of Mumbai. But not in the typical fashion, of course. Large sacks of clothes/garments/etc. are carried to the outdoor 'operations facility.' The clothes are then beaten repeatedly against a tub-like stone basin containing water and a mild, natural detergent.

Hmm...

Some peculiarities / differences between cultures:

• No sunglasses worn
• Yes PNP and BPNP (Public Nose Picking - also done Blatantly)
• No trash cans - compared to Chicago, even India lacks garbage receptacles
• Janwaro Kesat nachna - translates in Indian to Dances with animals (our guide wasn't savvy on translating wolves, but you get the idea)
• Sleeping policemen = speed bumps
• Street cleaners = pigs/cows eating trash off of the ground
• Yahoo ads are crazy - "Priya is looking for a soulmate...Are you the one?"
  

Feeding Religion

When talking with friends to determine where to go to eat, how often is Indian an option? I love going for Indian food, but usually sparingly - once a month or so. Mexican I could have every day for every meal, but Indian is more of a treat for me. Not to mention how full (read: bloated and disgusting) I feel after each Indian meal. Imagine that bloated feeling times three - every day! To take advantage of the authenticity of the surroundings though, I have only been interested in eating the best Indian food here. Locally known simply as 'food.'

My favorite new dish is the samosa chaat that we had at Samrat. It consisted of smashed samosas in light yoghurt and tamarind chutney sauces, garnished every so elegantly with Jay's potato chips. Excellent! I've also really enjoyed my new choice drink: fresh-squeezed lime juice. The limes are so different from what I'm used to - not at all and very mild and light tasting. If that makes any sense. On the bottom of the drink list is a bottled lemonade served aboard an intra-India flight. It might have been good except for all of the salt that was added to it. Other good stuff includes a thali, an assortment of many different dishes, sauces, rices and breads. The dangerous part: it's unlimited so you keep getting refills on everything. The two best places for thali so far are Samrat in Mumbai and Natraj in Udaipur, which served and refilled dishes at speeds unfathomably fast.

What is ultimately surprising to me is that even after a number of days in India my digestive system has not objected at all, probably thanks to considerable efforts against supporting the Lactose Regime and abstaining from all dairy entirely. I asked Yael, our Mumbai guide, what religion I would be if I lived here, considering my dairy prohibition. There seems to be an unending number of sects, each with their own beliefs, practices and dietary restrictions. Most familiar and intriguing to me are the people known as Bene Yisrael, or Yehudis. Shipwrecked off the Mumbai coast over two thousand years ago while refugees from a foreign occupied very pre-Israel strip of land. They were also called Shanivar Teli, meaning Saturday oil-pressers since they abstained from working on Saturdays and since oil pressing was their game. They are the dis-connected, now reconnected Jews before Jewish meant anything. But they eat dairy, so I guess that makes me a bit more religious...maybe.

The major religious muscle includes Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus, the vast majority, many of whom are vegetarian but simply called 'veg.' A new (for me) interesting religion is Jainism, an offshoot of Hinduism. There are special items on many restaurant menus catering to Jain standards. I thought at first that notations saying that certain dishes can be made without garlic or onions were for tourists. Not so - Jains revere the earth and dirt and believe that all therein is holy and therefore refrain from eating that stuff. Actually all root vegetables. Some kid's clever attempt to avoid eating vegetables if you ask me.

Somewhat opposite from the Jains are the Farsis, who worship the sky and air, ground too I think. They have mysterious traditions, as their temples and practices are open only to their faithful. Little known fact: the creator of 'Members Only' jackets was a Farsi. Yet is is more commonly known that they have a certain area of Mumbai that is cordoned off in which is kept their Temple of Silence. I don't know how tall the tower reaches, but I did learn that it was definitely silent: they hang their dead so the body can be with the holiness of the air. I guess that was thought to be paramount to the destruction of the body over the course of a few hours by hungry vultures, buzzards and vicious parrots. Ok maybe not the parrots but that really sounds quite unappealing and morbid when thinking of how to execute one's last will and testament. I'd think the family's grief might be a bit expounded by seeing a bird eat mommy...

Day One: Arrival in Mumbai

We drove from the Mumbai airport to the hotel at 230am local time, which is sometime yesterday in Chicago given the 11.5 hour time change. The smell outside was that of burning - similar to what I've experienced in other third world countries. The streets were pretty wide open and did not yet display the stereotypical traffic jams that I had heard quite a bit about prior to my trip. What was all too full, however, were the sidewalks. Marked with herds of people, the streets of Mumbai were crowded with homeless masses. There wasn't just one here or there; families huddled together and continuous rows of impoverished people slept on either sides of the street. This image made Cabrini Green seem pretty optimal.

It was hard for me to adjust to the right-hand drive vehicles and opposite flows of traffic (much less the aforementioned poverty). I kept passing cars and was repeatedly surprised when I wouldn't see a driver. But at the same time, it doesn't even seem like there are any drivers at all. The roadways are so congested since animals, pedestrians and porters carrying heavy loads of all kinds use them as sidewalks in addition to the cars, buses and an array of cycles. Coupled with the lack of stop lights, the equation results in non-stop traffic in which everyone flows together from all directions in a not-so-graceful manner. Read: continuous honking from every car, all the time. Honking, though seen in the US as a sign of frustration, aggression or heightened hormones, is not the same for Indians. Rather it is done more out of tradition and not from anger. They constantly use their horns to alert the menagerie of people on the street that they are a-comin'. It was like an auto-horn or perhaps set on a timer in case the drivers would forget to keep honking. The first Indian invention since they proclaimed independence in 1948: the Always On Horn. Though I am all for traditions, this one seems like it has run its course.

We began our morning by meeting our guide, Yael, and setting off for the slums. If by the sound of it you think that this area is downtrodden and wholly economically depressed...you've just hit a piece of it. Without any infrastructure, running water or electricity, the area and the 200,000 residents living in its tight quarters are hopeless. We went to a school that was started by a wealthy Indian businessman whose outlook was more hopeful. There are two classrooms that the school occupies - one for children 4-6 years old and the other for students 12-15. They operate at different times of the day due to the timing of varying domestic chores required of the different aged kids. Since the vast majority (probably safe to say 'all' here) of people living in the Kandivali East area are illiterate, it is a daunting task to convince them of the benefits of literacy for their children. Most are migrant workers, staying in the area for six months at a time before following the harvest further south. They follow the paths of their parents and generations before them, yet education is the only route their children have to escape the duration of their lives spent in their current environs.

We made our way back from the slum to a shop known for its iddlies. So good. I then bought a few kiwi from some hawker, which is what the Indians refer to as a street vendor, which there are certainly no shortage of. We continued to the main part of town, sprinted through a museum and then to a field across the street from the University of Mumbai where there were pick-up games of soccer and cricket. After tiring of this relatively quickly, we strolled down the Kolaba Causeway, a very small street market. After no luck trying to secure some pure silver elephant statues for cheap, we went to catch a few minutes of a new blockbuster hit in Bollywood: Jodhaa Akbar. It was really a cool experience. Just before the showing began everyone stood and sang the Indian national anthem. I just kept mouthing tarbooj (Hindi for watermelon) to myself since I didn't really know the words. We sat in the theater's balcony and kept trying to adjust to their awkwardly sliding seats. As one might deduce from the film's poster, this Bollywood movie was an epic love story, pairing a Rajput princess and a Mughal emperor. If that doesn't mean anything to you, just try to imagine it in Hindi. Despite the language barrier though, Yael offered her translation services when there was heavy dialogue and one could figure out the gist of it.

Finally we went back to the hotel and went to sleep. Awakened by the arrival of my parents hours later, we had a late night dinner at Masala Craft, a hotel restaurant which was very tasty. And Indian of course. My first full day in India felt like two, but nonetheless wholly enjoyable and exciting. Crescendo still building...

Mr Rara-rara Man: Getting there

The trail of luggage carts proceeded along the tarmac like a chain of camels marching through the desert. Except this desert floor was not comprised of sand but rather an expanse of concrete carpeting and offered a memorable, though unpleasant, smell of jet fuel. Gates like spaces - all pre-assigned, reserved parking for the aircraft, guided through the lot by the coolest blue lights.

"Mr Rara-rara Man, please see a flight attendant" was an announcement on the public address system. Without hesitation I made my way to the galley in the rear of the bubbled business class section of the B747-400: "I am Mr Rara-rara Man," I proclaimed. The two flight attendants for our section, Nathan, a very sweaty gay Deutschsprecker, and Stella, a lively, spunky veteran, smiled welcomingly. I then asked for a refill of my Malbec and we enjoyed a few laughs before I returned to my seat.

Take-off is a go! Vacation, full throttle ahead. Nevermind - abort, abort!
"Remain seated! Remain seated! Remain seated!" was the call from the cockpit. Shit - what happened? Are we ok? Attempt two went along without a hitch. Basically an aircraft's version of 'PC2 Load Letter' error with the auto-pilot system as the pilot explained. My words, not his.

Once airborne, my excitement began the crescendo I am still experiencing. The adventure to India was just beginning. Though after a very smooth flight and a rocky landing, we arrived in Frankfurt's Main airport, which reiterated how much that airport sucks. The following is part five of a brief outline of how much, exactly, it sucks:

See sign pointing to Red Carpet Club
Approach security checkpoint to get into said club
Ask security if it is necessary to take out our liquids from our bags
Response - no
Items passed through the x-ray machine
Security attendant: Do you have any liquids?
Me: Yes
Security: Take them out
Toiletries removed
Security: Do you also have a bottle of water?
Me: Yes - here it is
Security: There are three bottles (cannot ever have too many bottles of Dasani)
Me: Oh yeah...here they are
Security: Throw them away
My soliloquy: Whaaa? So I went through security in the US and purchased ridic expensive water in an approved price-gouging airport store (see: Flying Friendly)(usually a WH Smith outlet) so I can finally hold something that's mine to drink only to have it confiscated when I arrive!? Is my water not safe enough for Europe? Fucked up.
I drank a full bottle of the world's finest water, bottled by Dasani (considered a sweet fruit luxury by many) and enter the supposed Red Carpet Club area...
Dead end! We arrived to a gate with no exit area! At least there could have been a sign that said 'no outlet' or something.
Return to security
Me: Can I have my water back?
Butch security woman: "Your water is gone forever." (That is a direct quote - and she wasn't being poetic, just naturally brutal.)
Soliloquy, part 2: Don't you think if you're going through a security checkpoint after which is a single gate for a single flight bound for Russia someone might ask if that's your intended destination - much less check your papers to make sure that you belong there!? Again, paranoia over terrorist water over-shadows all else and remains in the forefront of thirsty security apparatuses worldwide.

When we finally arrived at the real Red Carpet lounge I found a croissant and looked in a bowl of spreads for some jelly. Not exactly realizing what Leberwurst was since I, well I just wasn't thinking, I peeled back the container and started gagging right away. That stuff should be considered contraband and subject to heavy fines. There is no good part of the liver and certainly no sense in packaging the worst part of it. So nasty.

The flight to Mumbai wasn't as comfortable as it was on United. Six rows from the back of the plane (row 49 to be exact), we were squeezed into seats more appropriate for a diarama. An over-energetic boy sat behind me and was shouting and making noises the duration of the 7hour flight. We also had a neighbor a few rows away have a health problem that was evidently serious enough for calls for a doctor. I was thinking that we might have an emergency landing and then I could finally get to see Tehran. I'm not sure what the other passenger's problem was, but I have a hunch that it had to do with sitting so far back in the plane.

Alas, after 15+ hours of flying and airport nonsense we arrived and began our early morning journey to our hotel, situated along the coast of the Arabian Sea.