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| An Intimate Moment Before the Monsoon Rains |
I.
To
the non-native eye, Mumbai is a cauldron of chaos. The first sign of mayhem is the
traffic. It slogs along during rush hour, a shrieking chorus of honking taxis,
motorcycles and trucks. Sitting in traffic for an hour and a half during rush
hour is normal. Crossing the street is like playing Frogger. You weave between stopped traffic and hop in front of cars
sprinting through red lights.
The
second mark is the scent of trash. Neighborhoods greet visitors with heaps of
trash and an aroma that smells like a sewage curry. Flies linger on the peppers
and bananas of street vendors, while stray dogs takie a siesta from patrolling
the neighborhood.
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| Snoozing in front of the Dadar train station ticket counter. |
On
Sunday, I headed to park with two friends to play soccer with a larger group.
Being a naïve American, I expected to play on a well-manicured pitch, with
emerald grass, and enough space to accommodate several games. But the chaos
from the streets spilled over to the park. We shared the rust colored muck with
at least 300 weekend warriors. Cricket and soccer balls routinely whizzed onto
our field. Players from different cricket games calmly waited to field our
ball, unfazed by a charging midfielder or striker from our soccer game. I had
trouble challenging players from the other teams. I was too busy digesting the
crush of bodies, the competing thuds of the cricket and soccer balls and
avoiding falling into a pile of mud the color of manure. (A note: We agreed to
never play soccer at this field again.
Everyone agreed it was too difficult to play in such a crowded area.)
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| Piling onto the Local Train |
The constant symphony of chatter, traffic and the seemingly interminable flow of men huddled around the cigarette counter at the corner store is overwhelming to digest for anyone not from Mumbai. But after a while you learn how to live here. You learn to wait patiently during the two-hour traffic jam. You start cheering on your taxi drive to honk louder during a traffic jam so he’ll blow through the choking traffic. Slowly what was once foreign, bizarre and shocking becomes banal and routine. You learn to manage the mayhem.
II.
I
finally started class on Saturday. After a week of wading through the swamps of
Indian government bureaucracy, I was ready to get back into the classroom. My
economics professor, who showed up 30 minutes and which is apparently normal,
spent a bulk of the session lecturing about the history of India and explaining
why he believed the United States has developed at a faster pace than India.
The
college where I am studying, Welingkar
Institute of Management Development and Research, is pretty formal. Men
must wear a button down shirt and slacks to class and women must wear either
pants, a skirt or traditional Indian clothing appropriate for a business
setting. On Monday, I noticed a man with a long ponytail, wayfarer sunglasses, beat up
Wranglers, flip flops and an un-tucked button down shirt walking around the
college. He looked like he belonged at a Grateful Dead reunion show. An hour later, sixty students popped up when the
ex-Dead Head, who I later learned is one of the most beloved faculty members at
Welingkar, walked into my international business class. For the next three
hours, the students chuckled at his jokes and listened to every word of his commentary. He didn’t mind
saying “fuck”, “shit”, making sexual innuendos and checking his cell phone. It
was one of the more entertaining lectures I’ve ever attended.
III.
The filth, traffic and poverty is only
part of a much larger narrative. I spent yesterday around the swankier parts of
Mumbai, where real estate prices are in the millions, Merecedes and BMWs roam,
with Jonas, an exchange student from Denmark, Peter, the other participant from
my American study abroad program and Smriti, our adviser. We visited the house
Gandhi lived in Mumbai, checked out Mumbai’s marquis tourist attractions, the
Gateway of India and the Victoria Terminus. We stopped by Leopold’s Café, one
of the sights of the 2008 terrorist attacks. The bullet holes from the attacks
were left untouched and are very easy to sight.
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| Victoria Terminus |
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| The Owners of Leopold's Cafe weren't fans of Bill Clinton |
We ended our day at Phoenix Mall, an upscale shopping center. Phoenix Mall is easily the nicest shopping center I have ever seen. With upscale stores like Gucci, Chanel, Diesel, and Hugo Boss and American chains California Pizza Kitchen, McDonald’s and Staples, you feel like you’re in New York, London or Cleveland(my hometown pride showing). People watching is interesting at Phoenix. Many young women walk around in skirts, shorts and tighter pants, things you don’ usually see walking around Mumbai. I don’t remember seeing too many saris or kurtas. But you abruptly re-enter India when you exit the mall and start haggling with taxi drivers.
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| Phoenix Mall |
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