Our Shared Spiritual Adventure

In downtown Mumbai

This entry was posted on 3/21/2006 3:57 AM and is filed under Our travels.

It's 2:30 in the afternoon Tuesday March 21 Mumbai time; about 2 in the morning of the same day, back home in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Getting a reliable internet connection hasn't been as easy as I'd hoped. Today I did a bit of sightseeing, roaming the shops and sidewalk vendors in lower Colaba, the southernmost tip of Mumbai. Lots of interesting sights. Sari-draped middle-aged women walking with their mothers. Families taking an outing. Hawkers everywhere. "Sir I have T-shirts in your size!" "Look sir, finest fabric!" "Taxi?" "Antique store over here, sir!" I've got a sore throat and am popping Echinaceas in hopes it doesn't develop into a full-blown cold; I found a little hole-in-the-wall store that sold various juices and cookies, and I rubbed my throat, and the man asked, "Vicks?" and I nodded. One rupee each; about 2-3 cents apiece.
My hotel is in a sort of family neighborhood/ middle class commercial zone / drug dealer / Muslim neighborhood.  You walk 50 feet and you've moved into a different zone. The drug dealers mostly come out in the wee hours of the morning, I'm told. Several Muslim families in the hotel, and there's a Qur'an in the bedside table instead of a Bible. The hotel is spotless and well-appointed for budget hotel ($70/night, which is a steal in Mumbai). Most of the time you pay 2 or 3 times that for a decent hotel.  I'm happy with my hotel. If you want to visit Mumbai, you have to deal with the city the way it is. Want a nice quiet place, go to . . . Las Cruces!
The traffic patterns here are absolute madness. There are eight hundred jillion yellow and black taxis, Ambassador cars made here in India. For Indians. Who are small people. When I get out of one, I have to scoot sideways, stick my feet out first. then lower my rear end toward the ground, then finally I can get my torso and head out the door. Rather like a clown getting out of a toy car. Not very dignified. Nothing here is big American size. The other common vehicle on the road here is the motorized rickshaw, rather like a souped-up golf cart; also generally yellow and black. Thrown in a mix of motorbikes, bicycles, and a fair number of nice Toyotas and similar sized new cars. Throw them all into a two-lane road (each way). The lane markers are purely decorative and have nothing to do with where anyone drives. Signals? I am not sure that most vehicles even have them, other than the Toyotas; nobody uses them. You use your horn. Let's say it's a two lane road, and there are perhaps five working lanes in it, counting the motorscooters, rickshaws, etc. We're in a taxi, and there's a smidge of room between two vehicles. Better get into it. This is accompanied by toots on the horn. Some toots are in anger; "you idiot" translates well into Hindi, and when the driver's yelling, no translation is needed. But mostly the horn honking is saying, "I'm coming up on your left side, watch out for me." If an inch or two more is needed, you toot the horn again, and the driver nudges to the left enough for you to squeeze in. The light changes, and everybody moves forward quickly. In the middle of it all, with what looks like the entire cast of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" weaving and surging forward, a pedestrian steps off the curb and directly into the path of the oncoming traffic. Pedestrians have learned to gauge to the millimeter how to cross through such traffic. They take a step, move their hips forward to let a taxi by, take a step and a hop, move past one motor scooter, stand still, let one more pass, take another half step, let a car pass, move three steps as it passes, and in a few seconds cross a busy street right smack in the middle of traffic. The drivers are not yelling at them; it is a common practice. Often the pedestrian, seeing a vehicle headed right for him, will stick out his hand, like a halfback straight-arming a defensive back. I've even seen this straight-arming done from the back seat of a rickshaw, as a driver careened across traffic right in front of a car. And the amazing thing is that 99% of the vehicles do not have a scratch on them. The roads are so busy, and the traffic so slow --generally around 20 mph or so -- and the drivers so deft, that everybody manages to miss everybody else. I remember when I was in Panama, the procedure for changing lanes, or for passing someone, was to honk loud and pull out into oncoming traffic. Every single taxi was a wreck; here, they look great. But it looks like a real art, learning the Indian way to drive.
Yesterday was the last day of the Asia Society Conference, at the amazing Grand Hyatt Mumbai. Full of people opening doors, gloved and uniformed employees, courteous and helpful and friendly. A gorgeous hotel, and it only costs about $400 per night! I didn't stay there, but took a taxi there (alighting oh, so gracefully from the dinky little taxis, in front of the doormen) for the conference. Everything there is expensive. Internet use is $25 for one day. (Here in this internet store it's one-tenth that price, $2.50, for 3 hours; more typical of Indian prices). Anyway, on the last day I still had a bunch of my business cards, and hadn't met nearly enough people. So when the room cleared for a break, I went around and laid one of my cards at each place setting. I wondered if one of the hotel staff would come up and say, "Sir, putting cards is only for our paid sponsors." A young man, one of the hotel staff clearing the tables did come up, and said, "Sir, may I help you?" I gratefully handed half the cards to him, and that made easy work of it. I handed him a few more cards, with a 100 rupee note mixed in ($2.50); he smiled,and distributed them,too. Probably that was a half-day's wage for him. While he did that,I went over and met the American consul. Talked to him for a few minutes, and was glad to meet him. Then I met one of the speakers, and since I hadn't caught his introduction I asked who he worked for. "Dow-Jones." "And what do you do for them?" I asked. He said, "Well, I supervise all of the editors and writers for Asia." Good Lord.

I then met a college professor at one of the business schools in Mumbai. She was very interested in Vickie's project.  Her husband is a brigadier general in the Indian army, in the electronics area. There is a sewing cooperative in Bangalore operated by the widows of Indian army personnel, and she wanted to link Vickie up with it. Her parents started a charitable organization to train health care workers in geriatrics, and she is active in that, as well. Apparently, in India geriatrics is really not understood, and is at a rudimentary level. She said that an old college classmate of hers was the daughter of the Prime Minister of Malaysia, who had started a charitable organization to train home health care workers in caring for family members with Alzheimers or other serious conditions, and this Indian professor and her parents were starting the same kind of operation in India. My old college roommate Ken Brummel-Smith was the head of the American Geriatric Society, I think; so I'll put him in touch with these women. I think Ken could have a real impact. Anyway, meeting this lady was a real find, and she will enjoy meeting Vickie. Then I met a man from the Indo-US Chamber of Commerce. He took my card and said, "The next time you come to India, let me know, and we will set you up a talk, and invite all our members, and you can talk about all the various kinds of visas."
Those two were the two people I wanted to meet at the conference; and I met them in the last two hours of the three-day event.
Last night I went to a Baha'i meeting. The Baha'i Center is on the second floor of an office building on a street called "New Marine Lines" (except that in a fit of nationalism, the government has given every street with an English name, a Hindi name; and so every street actually has two or three names; some people only know one of them, so getting around can be interesting.) My young taxi driver didn't know where the street was located. He leaned out the taxi to a man on a bicycle. "Uncle!" He shouts. "Where is New Mabariney Lines?" The man on the bicycle looks bewildered. The driver tries a few others. We eventually find it, on a busy street filled with people on foot. It is across from the Blossom School, behind the Income Tax Building, down the street from one of the U.S. Consulate's offices called the American Center; I'll visit there tomorrow. Anyway, the Baha'is were marvelous, and I greeted them and told them Vickie's coming, and they were interested to learn of this. Just a couple of weeks ago they had several Rotary guest speakers, so were interested to learn of Vickie's Rotary Ambassador Scholarship. I caught a ride home with a young Indian Baha'i dentist who has just taken a post in New Guinea, and leaves in two weeks.
Right now Mumbai is in the throes of cricket madness. There's a five-day match between India and England, and the rivalry could not be more intense. Well, yes it could -- if it were Pakistan. Anyway, they want to beat the Brits at the game they learned from them. So there's no shortage of cars around.
Mumbai has its lovely areas. It is a fascinating city.
Brent

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