Mumbai Madness

Welcome to the inaugural post of my adventures during my nine-month stay in India. Since touching down in monsoon-drenched Mumbai at the end of July 2008, I've learned to commute in a rickshaw, moved into my simple-living room, decoded the puzzling university system, done away with any notion of solitude (did I mention, it's a city of 18 MILLION), and, of course, found a favorite coffee shop. So much has happened already, and I hope you enjoy following along with me. Your comments and reactions are welcomed!

The charmed life on Pali Hill

My first few days in Mumbai were spent at Pali Hills Hotel in the suburb of Bandra. I'd heard of this place through the Bombay Expats Web site, which has been hugely helpful in finding out everything from where to get hangars to how to get a solid Internet connection--albeit still a bit elusive. Even though I read through this site daily for a month leading up to my departure, nothing could have prepared me for what I would feel and see when I actually arrived in Mumbai. I was completely overwhelmed by the rubble of decaying buildings, slum housing, clouds of dust, and crowds and traffic everywhere. And I'd been told Bandra was the Queen of the Suburbs! Nevertheless, I decided to brave the storm (literally, there was a monsoon downpour for my first three days) and wander the neighborhood.

At the front desk of the hotel, my inquiry into a map of the local streets was met with a look of complete bewilderment. In time, I would realize why: most streets don't have names, and everyone, including rickshaw and taxi drivers, just asks for directions, stopping every five feet if need be. Addresses are always accompanied by landmarks (my address: behind Bandra Gym) and streets are often confusingly named in relation to main ones (take the road "off Carter Road," nevermind trying to figure out which one!). Needless to say, on my first trip outside the hotel, I stayed quite close to my base, walking as far as the Arabian Sea in one direction and the slum housing settlement in the other direction.

So, with my complete lack of orientation and not a familiar soul in sight, I went back inside and rummaged through my suitcase to find the list of phone numbers of random contacts I had collected before leaving, one of which was a Trinity student named Cyrus Appoo. Since then, Cyrus and his family have been life-savers to me here. I had never met Cyrus before--hence the randomness of these contacts--but he, too, lived right on Pali Hill and told me his parents had an extra apartment that was fully furnished and they wanted me to stay there until I found housing of my own. I told him I'd meet him in an hour, my bags were packed. Thus, the charmed life I lead. This place was some seriously posh digs, and a peaceful haven away from the chaos of the city. In addition, they had a whole entourage of enlisted help, including a driver, a cook, and maids who would call me each morning to offer a breakfast suggestion for that day.

But, alas, all good things come to an end

After a couple weeks of having omlettes and coffee delivered to my apartment by the Appoo's cook and delicious lunches and dinners with their family, I am living a more simple existence in a homestay with a widow named Hazel in a two-bedroom apartment in Bandra. The location is great: I am just a five-minute walk to the promenade the runs along the Arabian Sea and two minutes away from a market with almost anything else I might need, including hangars. Location, I have come to find out, is everything here, mostly because commuting is so horrendous. Luckily, my two major commitments--the courses in comparative mythology and communal harmony and social peace--are at the university on Saturday and Sunday, so the traffic is usually moving, and the rickshaw ride is a quick 20 minutes on the highway (yes, the rickshaw goes on the highway, but this warrants a blog of its own).

As in my other house on Pali Hill, my new home has a maid who cooks and cleans, but this one actually lives here as well. Although it may sound like a luxury only for the rich, everyone here has hired help. Labor is incredibly cheap, as you will find about 10 workers at a time in any given Subway-type shop--much quicker than the one worker at home! Still, the concept of a live-in maid is just so foreign to me, and quite disconcerting. These maids leave their families in villages far outside Mumbai and come to the city alone to find work and send money home. The maid at this house seems quite young (our communication is minimal with my few Hindi phrases and questions), sleeps on the floor of the kitchen, and cleans all day long. The caste system is clearly still in place here.

A tangible energy

Ok, so enough of my life inside. This place is utter chaos outside, but somehow, in all it's exhaustiveness, it is such an energizing city. There was a guy from Delhi, India, in the hotel with me during those first few days, who said, "Mumbai is where it's all happening. Everybody comes here with a dream in his or her pocket." It's true, and you can feel that excitement in the air here. You can also feel a lot of bodies, everywhere and all the time. People pack this city, and it's a place that truly never sleeps. At any hour, there is this old guy with a henna-dyed red beard sitting on the street corner down the road, selling bananas off a blanket he sets up on the sidewalk. I've never walked by that street corner when he's not there. So much life is out on the streets: the tailor with his sewing machine, mending a garment out in front of the shop, or the tea ("chai") man who sets up his tin canaster and glass cups and little hot stove on the sidewalk each day (one cup is usually about $.15 - .25; hence, my constant chai high!), or the farmer who walks up and down the street all morning (I can hear him from my room) singing the names of the goods for sale. It's alive here, and that gives character and vitality to a place that seemed to me, at first, so depressed and run down.

So, I guess you could say I've finally settled into my life here. It's taken a few weeks to get going, but I've managed to figure out some of the systems and have begun teaching English to women in the slums and helping street kids at a shelter in Juhu, the next suburb up the coast. The other day I was coming back from a long day in the center of the city, taking the jam-packed local train, and, for the first time, I got off at the Bandra stop and felt an immediate sense of calm come over me. Don't get me wrong, the scene outside the station was anything but serene, and the cacaphony of seagull wails were competing against the blaring horns of gridlocked traffic. But I felt comfortable there, I knew the streets and the places on those streets, and, for the first time, it felt like home.