April 6/7 - Welcome to Mumbai

We have landed safely in Mumbai, made our way to our hotel, slept through the night, and are now out walking around to get acclimitized. Wow, what a change! From the well-ordered systems of England to the random culture of Mumbai, the culture shock is real. What can I say, there is not much of "beauty" that we have seen yet. There are many buildings under construction, some will probably be finished, others haven't been finished for years and probably never will. There these buildings are abandoned although I suspect that on closer look people may be living in them. Then there are the buildings that are still under construction, i.e. being held up by bamboo scaffolding, where it is obvious that many people are living in uncompleted rooms and apartments. There there are the shacks that are the slums, and then some finer buildings which are properly inhabited. The roads are actually generally good. They are paved and the lanes are marked. Now, just because a road has 3 lanes doesn't mean there are 3 lanes of traffic. You just drive where there is an opportunity. Its uncanny, you just suddenly realize the taxi is squeezing in between two other cars, and silently, the other two cars move apart to let the taxi in. The main mode of communication on the road is the "horn". It has its own language. If a car honks from behind it is just letting you know its there, or its passing you, or its saying "no" to your signal to move out. Its amazing! On our hour's drive from the airport, we didn't see any incidents. Unbelievable. The roads are shiny tarmac, so when on several occasions the taxi driver realized that the car in front was stopping and slammed on the breaks, the taxi literally slid to a halt on its bare, tread-worn tyres. The best remedy was just not to watch the traffic. You can also identify some of the social problems by the prevalence of certain signs such as: "Stop violence against women, children, and senior citizens"; "To Corruption Office"; and "Help keep Mumbai clean". I noticed some of the taxis turning off their engines when they were stuck in the traffic, but I am not sure if this was to protect the atmosphere or the driver's pocket! Our walk around the streets has also been interesting: we have found vegetable or produce stalls with a cow tethered just outside the stall complete with a bunch of green grass; or, we have seen carts pulled by 2 ox tethered at the side of the road patiently waiting while they are off-loaded. We are in the market area of Colaba. We have seen Leopold's and intend on going back there for a quiet beer in the safety of its reputation for being a meeting place for travellers and visitors to Mumbai. Crossing the frantically busy streets on foot is a life threatening event, but it does seem that the mindset is to avoid people at all costs. When we first set out, we felt very obvious with our white skin, but in this market area there seem to be a few more tourists, although certainly not a lot. There is begging on the streets, but its not too overpowerful. Its heartbreaking though to see some of the people who have obviously been maimed for the sole purpose of begging, such as a young man who sat by the side of the road with is willow-legs crossed behind his neck. Much like the acid in the eyes in the film Slumdog Millionaire - which I might add is referred to everywhere here. Ray got stopped by a Jehovah's Witness missionary intent upon bringing change to Mumbai. So, although there is obviously immense poverty in the city and suburbs, life goes on. The job that India has to find employment for all its citizens (over a billion) so that they can finance their own living, is overwhelming which leads one to think that maybe we need to find another life-system to cope with poverty. With that thought, I will leave you as we go on to investigate the rest of Mumbai.