Q: What do you call 92 degrees in Mumbai?
Trip Start
Feb 23, 2009
1
4
29
Trip End
Mar 18, 2009
Mumbai (Bombay), Maharashtra, India
Friday, February 27, 2009
A: Winter!
Mumbai, ancient yet modern. A tropical archipelago of 7 islands, and the Raj's brightest jewel. Mumbai was the dowry of Portuguese Princess Infanta Catherine de Branganza who married Charles II of England in 1661.
Around the 3rd Century BC, the coastal regions and presumably the islands were part of the Magadhan empire, leaving behind some Buddhist monks and the deep-sea fishermen called Kolis, whose stone goddess Mumbadevi gave her name to the modern metropolis. - from hotel welcome letter
On Thursday, I woke up before sunrise to write, and kept peeking out of the curtains at the promenade, where people were going to and fro under the dim yellow streetlights. It's a little startling to see some joggers and power walkers in saris and tennis shoes.
Our family was up promptly and felt well adjusted to the new time zone. The breakfast buffet in our hotel was about 15 entrees (some of Indo-Asian origin, and some Western items like French toast and scrambled eggs), and there were fruit juices, cakes, pastries, and an omelet service. We ate there every morning, and a couple dinners too, but it was always delicious, and the service was very attentive and friendly. One very smiley waitress emboldened me to ask about the terrorism. I asked, were you working here when the terrorism took place next door? "Yes, sir," she said, with the same huge smile. I asked, what was that like? But she didn't answer, she just kept smiling. I had either crossed some inappropriate boundary, or she only had enough English to feel comfortable taking my food orders.
Time to be tourists. Miles, who has been taking a finance class at his high school, wanted to visit the Mumbai Stock Exchange, so we got a driver from the front of the hotel and headed that direction. The driver let us out in front, and we just marched up to the busy entrance of the building and asked if we could enter. The answer was a flat "no", and a scowl from the armed guards. Everyone coming and going had a photo ID with them, and they didn't particularly look like American tourists. We made some other inquiries, but there didn't seem to be any tours or access to any of the activity.
It was a neighborhood of banks, but most of them looked to be the size of newspaper stands. However, we spotted a large Bank of India building across the street, so we went over there to change more money to rupees. It was a bit of an adventure. We were directed into a tiny wooden elevator, barely big enough for us and the operator. On the second floor, we found the foreign exchange booth, which was like a parking attendant booth in the middle of a large hall of cubicles. A friendly banker entered from the rear, and exchanged our money, and then gestured that we should have hot chai from the man pushing the tea trolley behind us. The banker also took one thru the tiny window in his booth, and we stood smiling and nodding and drinking chai together. I thought it was way better than getting a free pen from a bank.
Our driver next took us to a shopping area in one of the oldest parts of the city, the Kolaba Causeway. Rows of small shopfronts on both sides of the street have clothes, jewelry, trinkets, t-shirts, and vendors shouting for attention. In the great tradition of drivers taking you to a shop you didn't ask for, we were dropped in front of a rather large store of carpets, silver items and pashmina scarves, and escorted in by the armed doorman. (Our driver later explained that since we went in, he was allowed to have a good parking place in front.) The store walls included photos of Bill Clinton buying items there, or at least holding them. I felt sorry for Bill, because we preferred to hurry out of there as soon as we saw the prices, and we were not famous enough to offend anyone.
We wandered the Kolaba area for a couple hours, until Miles told us we were cramping his style, and he preferred to haggle on his own without worrying about his parents getting pickpocketed nearby. So Jae and I happily sent him off, and we wandered down to the Gateway to India. A few Indian groups there asked if they could take their picture with us, maybe because they had never seen such a fine hat before.
The Taj Hotel next to the Gateway to India is also undergoing repairs after the shootings and fires caused by the terrorists, but we were allowed to go in and look at the restaurants. You can tell the posh establishments around Mumbai these days because they not only have metal detectors, they also have people watching the equipment. Less posh is indicated by metal detectors that don't appear to be turned on. The Taj was the most posh, because there were three security screenings before we got in the front door. They actually x-rayed my video camera.
We met Miles for lunch back in the market area, at the Leopold Cafe, another former target for the terrorists. We weren't searching out these places; there just aren't many meal choices around there and McDonald's (which sells no beef products here) wasn't attractive to us. The Leopold still has unrepaired bullet holes and broken glass, but it was quite busy. It's the biggest cafe in the area, and it has a big menu, good service, and very good food. A short guard stood at one of the entrances with a huge rifle over his shoulder and a gigantic grin like he just got promoted to this position.
Afterwards, our driver took us to a nearby phone store to buy a local cell phone, since our "locked" phones from the USA had failed to accept local SIM cards. We got out of our car, stepped around some cattle in the street, and marched into the store to announce we would buy any phone they could sell us for 1000 rupees ($20). The salesmen competed against each other, and quickly got down to that price.
Our last destination that day was the Gandhi Sangrahalaya, self-advertised as "One of the important Gandhi Memorial Museums in the Country." It's a preserved house which Gandhi didn't own but in which he stayed for long periods of time when he was in Bombay. It's filled with historical photos, books and displays, all of which bored Miles, except for one photo showing him getting arrested in that house and taken to Dum Dum Jail. (Very amusing to a teenager.)
Gandhiji's sleeping room is preserved as it was, with little more than his spinning wheel, a bowl for food, and a bare mattress on the floor. It's a glaring example of how hard it was to find a decent affordable room in Bombay even back then!
Comments
It's like i'm there
Loving the blog Joe E! I only wish I could have heard Miles Rand and His Pineal Gland.