More Mumbai

Mumbai, India

In this blog: a laundry with a difference, the posh side of India, a marathon and a very different cinema experience.

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Everything breeds well in India - cows, monkeys, dogs, birds and most of all, people, but strangely something I've barely seen is the common pussycat. I was surprised then, that Mumbai was the first place I'd really some across cats, though still only in sensible numbers. They say cats are intelligent, so obviously they understand the overpopulation issues well, and abstain for the sake of their country. Noble creatures.

18th January

Still exploring the huge city of Mumbai, I took a commuter train north from my base in the south of the peninsula to Malabar Hill, a fairly classy part of town which wouldn't look out of place in any developed country. This is the thing about India; yes the chaos and poverty is the bit that sticks in people's minds, but there's also a large middle-class and upper-class population that can afford to live well. Malabar Hill was nice to wander round, with some lovely parks, modern flats and houses, and dramatic banyan trees overhanging the roads - a tree with loose drooping vines which would allow Tarzan to commute around the city pretty quickly. Was Tarzan Indian I pondered? There were also hundreds of eagles circling overhead, thanks to a walled area nearby where a certain religious sect places the bodies of their dead on plinths to decompose naturally... or rather be pulled to death by vultures and birds of prey. Interesting idea.

View from Malabar hill district

On the way to Malabar Hill, as I walked along I couldn't help notice tens of thousands of Police along the streets, not doing a lot as ever, but obviously prepared for something. I asked what was happening - 'nothing, nothing at all' said the first in a strange denial of something that obviously was happening, the second spoke in English but didn't make any sense, finally the third told me there was a Muslim march happening in honour of a leader who'd just died. Hindus and Muslims generally get on well, but there are definitely some underlying tensions, so I guess the Police were just very prepared. After Malabar Hill, I strolled down to a nice middle-class house named Mani Bhavan - Gandhi's house in Mumbai for many years which is now a small museum. There were some interesting letters he wrote to world leaders at the time, and a small collection of photos, most interestingly him hanging out with with Charlie Chaplin, a unlikely pairing I thought. 

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Mahalakshmi dhobi ghats - the laundry

Stoking the fires

I continued on to Mahalakshmi 'dhobi ghats' - a huge outdoor maze of rough and ready buildings and washpools that serve as the city's washer-dryer - most people send their washing here rather than do it at home it seems. I looked down over the area from a bridge along with a few other tourists who soon came and went, and decided to wander down to it to have a closer look. A local guy started pestering me to go on a tour around. I only wanted a quick look on my own really, but eventually relented and agreed a price. Paying to see a laundry eh?! He then slyly sent me off inside with his mate, who it turned out could barely speak English, and instead of a half hour tour, it was only just a quarter of an hour. Whilst it wasn't a lot of money to me, I left at the end with a bitter taste in my mouth at having being deceived somewhat. It was however a really interesting place to visit, where over two thousand people separate and wash the garments in concrete troughs, often stood in them themselves, before smashing them hard against an angled slab of concrete. 

Other people were then hanging, carrying, drying, ironing and folding. He led me into a long dark and dirty building that surrounded the site, where there were old oil barrels full of chemicals bubbling away, used for removing stubborn stains. A guy walked along the row of them with a long stick, stoking the fires below. It was a nasty place to work, and I would imagine life expectancy is pretty short for anyone in there. What you can't see from outside the area however, is that only some of the clothes are washed by hand - many are done by huge machines and dryers, so it's not all as primitive as it looks.

Aussie Shaun in Zoe Cafe-Bar

The weather in Mumbai was perfect; twenty-nine degrees but not humid with it. I wandered on through a working class neighbourhood, though for a change nothing really stood out as interesting or different, and stopped at one of the many home-made cake shops and tried a Ladoo, a small orange coloured ball of doughy, syrupy texture. Indians definitely have a sweet tooth. Shaun text me, the Australian guy I'd been hanging out with who I first met a month before, and I went to meet him for a beer. The cafe-bar we visited was in a creative hub of the city, and I was surprised at how classy, well designed and just plain cool it was. It wouldn't have looked out of place in London, and the clientele were all young, hip and affluent, something I'd not seen much of in India thus far. A total contrast to the areas I'd been in earlier that day, such is the diversity of Mumbai. 

We went for a Chinese afterwards - something you find surprisingly often in India though they're never run by Chinese - before heading back to the hotel. Almost home, we chanced upon a local bar, the first I'd been to in the country believe it or not, they're not that common. It was a stark white room with wooden benches, devoid of any character, and had more staff than customers which is about normal here. We were surrounded on all sides by stacks of boxes of beer bottles, making it feel more like being in a stockroom than a bar, and a few locals sat around quietly watching cricket on the TV. It's fair to say going to the pub isn't really an instringsic part of Indian life. Sean studied philosophy at uni, so we whiled away some time trying to decide the meaning of life, 'is it all pre-destined, or just meaningless random events' was about the cut of it. No conclusions were drawn.

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Sunday 19th January

I'd seen a lot of impromptu cricket being played around India, but until now no organised games on proper pitches. Mumbai has a huge area in the centre called Oval Maiden where there are about seven pitches side by side, and being a Sunday it was ram jammed with locals in their cricket whites playing matches, some for fun and some more serious. Despite not really being a cricket fan, I stopped for half an hour, and watched the passion with which they treated the game.

Mumbai marathon

It was a sports morning, 'cause a little further along I reached a road barricaded off and lined with people, for it was the day of the annual Mumbai marathon. I'd missed the main action, as the 10km and elite runners had set off early to avoid the heat - the first race was at an unbelievable 5am! It was still good to watch and professionally run, though typically Indian, with most runners being both natives and male, with the odd Chinese or westerner having a go.

Tiffin carriers, aka 'dabbawallas'

Nearby, I saw for the first time a Mumbai phenomenon I'd heard a lot about. At lunchtime everyday, local men in white cotton coats and funny white hats, carry tiffins (stacking food tins) containing freshly-prepared lunches from housewives at home to their husbands at work. It's quite a sight, seeing lots of these guys walking or cycling around, overloaded with these colour coded bags. A very efficient system apparently. I took the commuter train north, and was interested to see people growing vegetables on the narrow area between the two sets of train tracks  - no land goes to waste here. 

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Party time

At the Bhandra district, another middle-class area, I went for a walk to the coast, surprisingly passing a large Marks and Spencer along the way, followed by a Portuguese church - a legacy of their time in certain parts of India. Hearing a lot of noise, I stopped with some other people to look over the wall of a community area which was having some sort of games day, and ended up spending nearly an hour enjoying watching the action. Four colour-coded teams were competing against each other in different party games, such as to make the longest complete straw out shorter drinking straws, and dance together to music whilst swinging around balloons. It was quite obviously a middle-class event, with everyone wearing western clothing instead of traditional saris etc, and the commentator speaking only in English. 

Mumbai coastline

I soon reached the coastline, which was nicely strung by a beautiful palm tree lined and walled esplanade, and sat and relaxed on the wall for an hour. Skyscrapers across the bay nearby were fronted by tarpaulin and tin sheet slum houses on the shoreline, and a guy with no legs somehow lifted himself over the harbour wall and across the rocks for a swim. Despite having seen no westerners all day, a Canadian girl showed up and sat nearby, and we started talking. She turned out to be quite an experienced traveller having been to thirty-six countries, and in the two days she'd been in India she'd already been around a big slum on her own - brave or stupid for a lone girl I pondered. We spent an hour or so talking away, but unlike many Canadians I'd met before, she was a little too sure of herself and very quick to brag about how many countries she'd been to, and how many amazing experiences she'd had, and I found her quite irritating after a while. We went our separate ways, and after walking along the coast a bit more, I got a rickshaw back to the station with one of the craziest drivers yet, who spent more time on the right side of the road than the left, going flat out, beeping and swerving his way around everything in sight. I held on tight.

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That evening I went to the cinema again, only this time to see a proper Bollywood movie. I knew beforehand it was in Marati (local language) and didn't have any subtitles, but wanted to watch the first half just for the experience. After paying the extortionate £0.80 (80 rupee) entry fee, I bought some masala popcorn (what else?), and found my seat in the huge 1,500 seat cinema. India takes cinema very seriously, and it was a fantastic art-deco style room with top-notch sound and picture, and so much leg room I couldn't reach the seat in front if I tried. Everyone stood for the National anthem at the start, then the movie began. The crowd cheered enthusiastically at various points, people whistled and shouted at certain moments, and during one of the typically Bollywood set dances, where the whole cast dances together, a couple of guys in the audience stood up and started dancing themselves much to everyone's amusement. The film itself however was truly awful, and I say that not just cause I couldn't understand the dialogue. It was a wishy-washy plot of boy meet girl, girl doesn't like him, he persists (like a stalker), wins her favour, but he's from a different caste and her father doesn't like him and so on... It was more pantomime than movie. Amused and entertained by the experience rather than the film, at the interval (yes interval) I left, and went to meet Shaun for one last curry.

I was convinced beforehand I was going to Mumbai for the experience itself, rather than cause I'd like it, but left there quite liking the place. There's so much life there, it's in many places quite modern and clean, I enjoyed the colonial history, and seeing so much diversity. As mentioned in the previous blog, only in Mumbai can you find Asia's largest slum, and the most expensive house in the world pretty much side by side. 

Having spent no more than a week or so in one place for the past six months, I decided it was time to slow down for a bit, so coming next... a two week break with a difference.

Slum near Bhandra station

Locals hanging out by overland water pipes

A Glimpse Of British India

Shimla, India 

So despite a bad start, my stay at Manali had worked out to be quite exciting and interesting in the end. It was not the sort of place that was drawing me in though and was pretty cold to boot, so it was time it move on. I'd planned for my next stop to be Rishikesh, but being in the Himalayas transport was a bit limited and the journey had to be broken over a few days, so I had to take a bus to Shimla first of all and stay the night. 

I took what they call the 'deluxe' class of bus this time, which it certainly was compared to the rattly night bus I took a few days before, but in reality is far from deluxe. I paid the rather odd 10 rupee (£0.10) charge for putting my bag in the boot and we were soon on our way, through deep grassy valleys, along the side of a long reservoir, passing a few apple orchards and lots of tall haystacks, sometimes built amongst branches of trees. I was sat by a nice Indian lady in her fifties who gave a helpful commentary of lots of things along the way, and identified herself as just working in a University, as if she was a cleaner, but at the end of the journey when I asked her name identified herself as 'Dr. G. D. Shamber, Professor of Philosophy'. I'd never have guessed. We went on, passing people making furniture by the road, cows wearing sacks on their back, many brightly painted houses advertising cement companies and mobile phone networks, and terraces built into the hillsides where people grow vegetables. What was most apparent was that in eight hours we barely spent a few minutes without passing a house or village, and there were many built in impossible-looking places up in the hills, reached across the river only by flimsy rope bridges. It was such an interesting journey, and I was glued to the window for almost the entire time.

Typical view from the bus window on the way

The Indian guys I'd been hanging out with for the past couple of days were also on the bus, and so once at Shimla we set out to look for a hotel together, taking the local bus a mile or two up into town for the cheapest fare I've paid yet - 3 rupees - or just 3 pence! We walked over the steep ridge that Shimla is built along, eventually finding a place nestled deep in the town among narrow streets. The other guys settled in the first hotel, despite the fact it didn't have a shower and they intended to stay four days, but I chose to stay next door where I could actually wash! The room was very tacky and dated and looked like it could have just about been the honeymoon suite in the seventies, but has been left like a time capsule and slowly got worn and battered. I was particularly amused by the notice on the back of the door - 'please keep the windows shut to keep the monkeys out'!

Sunset over the mountains around Shimla

I went out for tea with the Indian guys for the final time that night, eating a mushroom do piazza curry with jeera rice at a nasty looking pace they chose. In India ambience generally doesn't reflect quality though, just sometimes hygiene although not in this case. After a few days of slowly building up, the group's ringleader was now really getting on my nerves. Like many annoying people he kind of meant well, but everything he discussed was the biggest, best, fastest, most amazing, with no attempt to compromise or accept my opinion, doing his best to attempt to make anything I discussed seem trivial in a backhanded way. It had been fun hanging out with another group of travelers for a few days, especially as they were Indian and could teach me so much about their country. The other lads were very nice and genuine, but I slowly tired and agitated of top cat and in the end decided it was best to politely call it an early night and say my goodbyes. 

I had no intention of staying more than a night in Shimla as I saw it as just a stoppover, so went the next morning to buy an onwards train ticket. With a queue behind me, and people jumping in, the guy at the ticket desk quickly said there was no direct train to where I wanted to go but was very vague and reluctant to tell me all the details about times. I went to the bus window next door and, barely looking up from his newspaper, the guy gave me an equally fast and vague story. I decided to find an Internet cafe and find out times for myself and having not used the internet for a few days, before I knew it the morning had ticked by and I had decided to stay in Shimla for a day. I purposely don't keep up with the news too much whilst away, why should I, but I read there for the first about the sad death of Nelson Mandela, what an amazing guy he was.

Viceroyal lodge

When Britain ruled India as a colony, the government based in Calcutta, found it got too hot to think in the summer, so moved every summer for a few months to my location - the hill station of Shimla. Consequently it still retains a very Victorian colonial style - well laid out streets, British looking stone houses, band stands, promenades, cafés and so on, all based along a long knife-edge ridgeline. I spent that afternoon having a wander around, finding all a bit surreal; a bit like a theme park. At the far end of 'the mall' was the Viceroyal lodge - the former summer home of the British Ruler of India and now used as a University. It was styled part English, part Indian and part Scottish and couldn't look more out of place in it's surroundings. Sat in the grounds looking at it, for a few moments I really felt like I was back home, it was so quiet, normal and comfortable for a change! Ignoring the building itself, there were a few things I found incredible about the place - firstly that during British rule a fifth of the world's population was ruled from this building. And secondly, in the drawing room two famous talks were held, formally giving India independence from Britain, then later partitioning Pakistan into a separate country with Ghandi himself in a leading role in both. A guide took us on a brief tour inside, and I chatted to the only other foreign couple there who were English architects from Southampton. The guy hated the place from a styling point of view, and also made the valid point that whilst the rulers were sat there amongst the walnut, marble and ivory, the rest of India was living in poverty. No change there today then.

Shimla is full of monkeys - roaming the streets looking for food, jumping between rooftops, swinging between trees, and in some cases stealing food from people's hands apparently. Walking with the English couple back to the town, the lady pointed at a baby monkey up a tree and said 'oh how cute', and before you know it, it's mother jumped down and hurtled towards her, screeching with teeth snarling obviously taking offense to her pointing. Her husband reacted, shouting and waving his arms and the monkeys turned and lept away into the undergrowth - a funny moment and the first (but not last) time I saw the monkey's aggressive side. 

In the end Shimla worked out as an interesting insight into colonial India and made the stories I'd heard before more vivid and real, but one day was enough for me and it was time to head out of the mountains down to warmer climes.