We arrived in Mumbai 5 days ago and there hasn't been time to write until now... Right now I'm taking refuge from the steam bath outside in my considerably more comfortable air-conditioned corporate apartment room (where both the internet connection and the AC occasionally experience difficulties), and can record the standouts from the past few days.
Let's see: the night of arrival--I expected this because I've been to Mumbai once before--the intriguing yet weirdly comforting smell of masala mixed with pollution in the arrival hall, the non-working ATM, the only one in the exit hall, the crowds of people charging forth with their luggage through the narrow doors. What was new to me: the predominance of Western dress among the people on the plane, which I noticed for the first time--it was notably different on our flight to Delhi two days ago--the patience of the crowd of meeters and greeters, who did not budge for an hour as they waited outside (we waited, too--we did not get picked up because the person who was supposed to do it mixed up the date). Another standout: the driver of the van that finally picked us up had to turn left on a green arrow, yet the fact that the green arrow lit up did not mean that the oncoming traffic stopped. He just surged forth cutting across a sea of cars and rickshaws that beeped, swerved and swore at him.
Impressions from the first day--the leering, creepy painted hijras (eunuchs/transsexuals/transvestites/hermaphrodites who mostly work as prostitutes and have a horrible AIDS problem) leaning into my taxi as it stood at an intersection; they are whole communities of them here, begging for money. The terrible heated metal can of a car that is the basic taxi here (it's a black Ambassador that hasn't changed much since the fifties). It's about 95 degrees outside with high humidity. Everybody is sweating and life really begins after 5 PM (the morning is very hot too), not that the evenings are cool. Occasionally there is a breeze, a hot or a cold one. The fashionable middle-class Indians swarming the streets of the very in suburb where we're planning to live, Bandra West. The speed and chaos and dynamism of the city.
The weekend was spent apartment searching--we'll be trying for a place up on Mount Mary Hill, in a residential and leafy part of Bandra, with an ocean view--and trying to see some of Colaba, the hub of tourism in the center of the city. Said attempt proved not-so-successful because it's hard to be outside for more than 1/2 hour. The great redeeming aspect is the Alphonso mangoes which are now in season and will be through May since they need very hot weather. They are a dream, burnt orange, soft and luscious, with a taste so intense it almost crosses into the alcohol-tinged punginess of a papaya. Mangoes in the U. S. are so pathetic, and this drives it home even more.
Hmm... more impressions from early this week: lost at 9 PM on the way back to the hotel after more (lone) looking at apartments since Misha is at work late. Surrounded by a sea of Muslims in some crowded area of the (decidedly seedier) Bandra East, about ten of them looking into the car with animation and laughing, periodically yelling "Adres? Adres?" I guess I do have to learn some Hindi to avoid such trauma in the future. And it will be great to finally have a car and driver--I avoided thinking of taking on such a bourgeois lifestyle back in the U.S. but now realize that it helps quite a bit, because available taxis are not free and overwhelmingly not air-conditioned. Misha's colleague lent him his car for the weekend and I got to use it for a day yesterday--what a difference to be in that cool, comfortable bubble, gliding along the chaotic streets, passing other cars, people and rickshaws within a millimeter's distance--and yet pass them we did. It was strange to be so aloof from everything, and yet that it the middle-class experience here.
No comments:
Post a Comment