Mumbai remains a difficult place to come to grips with. I have hesitated going out on my own because it's a bit intimidating. I was worried about something happening that I couldn't understand or control. I have heard that this is unlikely and that really in spite of all the crowds there is very little crime of the type we Americans usually assume will happen anytime you are alone in a strange place. (Too much television maybe.)
So on Sunday I ventured out. I just walked out the front door of the hotel and headed off along the streets towards where I knew the famous Hare Krishna (aka ISKCON) temple is. It's hard to describe what this was like. Everything seems so random. There are not crowds of people in this neighborhood, which is very upscale, but there are always people walking everywhere or hanging out or driving through in various vehicles. You really have to watch where you are going as the vehicles go all over and if you stop or yield to them it only screws up the flow, so you have to trust them not to hit you as they trust you not to walk in front of them if they don't slow down. It's very tricky for a beginner. People do not usually walk on the sidewalks. I'm not sure why, but everyone walks in the road most of the time. Sometimes the sidewalks are blocked and the road is faster. Sometimes the sidewalks have broken apart or have open trenches, (Look out! No signs, just big holes!) and the road is smoother. Sometimes things have fallen from the buildings that you don't want to step in and the road is cleaner. So people walk in the road most of the time. So that's what I did. I wended my way down some streets fronted by upscale apartments. I can now recognize these in spite of their outward appearance which might be misinterpreted as "falling down." The guards and nice gateways and the relative lack of laundry hanging out the windows signals that these are the homes of the wealthy, just blocks from the beach. The facts that the street is a mass of bumps and broken stone and that the ever-present mildew makes every building look like a ruin are misleading.
Soon I come to an area of shops and commerce. These are open stalls constructed of corrugated steel and wood usually. Some are plaster buildings. They sell everything you can think of. Some are pharmacies, some are grocers, then there's a guy who sells bags of, well, I'm not sure, looks like insulation or something, then it's all bananas, then a stand with sodas and chips, then a Christian shrine, then sandals. These are just shacks with the goods sitting in piles or on shelves or small stands. There are people walking in the street but I don't see much shopping and the people around the stands just seem to be hanging out, sitting on the sidewalk watching the world go by, or not. It's Sunday so maybe not much happens on Sunday. The food stands seem to have customers, many sitting inside a covered area on stools with some tables. There seems to be conversation and camaraderie there.
After a little while I come to the temple. The area around the temple is no different than anywhere else I have passed. There's some gates, a sign, and beyond the walls a big building with some towers. There aren't any grounds per se. The building is built right up to the walls. There aren't any outward signs that this is an important place of worship. The only sign of anything different at all is that there are more than the usual number of rickshaws parked in front and there are some white people in tourist clothes clustered by the gates talking too loudly.
Around the corner from the temple is more commerce and then a big newish but still very dirty and rundown looking modern building. I realize that it is a movie theatre. As I walk around it I see a guarded door leading into a cosmetics store. Is this "the mall" that was mentioned to me as being "good shopping." Yikes. I decide to pass it by and see what lies beyond. A block later I am at the fancy apartments owned by the Oakwoods that I had visited earlier in the week. (Really expensive to rent, by the way. More than the hotel I am in, which is nice.) Then I find myself in a big square that I know from my ride to work everyday. I know this place is packed with destitute beggars, so I turned back and went back to the mall. I really didn't know what to do or what to expect. I walked through a hole in the wall and past the uniformed guards and through the metal detector manned by people in suits and there I was… in a department store.
They had cosmetics and sports clothes, shoes, women's (western) fashion and men's dress wear. There is a smallish bookstore and small CD/DVD store in the basement, and two different multiplex theatres. Very odd actually. Familiar in a way, yet so weird to have this kind of American department store plopped down in the middle of all the unkempt infrastructure of shacks, a wild and trashy waterfront, a vacant lot cum slum and a building with a yoga clinic in it. It's just not comprehensible. It seems like a dream where nothing is quite the way it should be even though everything is recognizable. It was hurting my brain so I left. Fashion jeans cost about US$60, shoes about US$65, some Rs2700 for some Nike running shoes. They probably sell for Rs1500 in the shack down the street. Haven't figured that out yet.
I walked down the nicest looking street towards what turned out to be the "big electronics store" I had heard was in the area. Yep. Big Electronic Store. Looked just like Best Buy. I don't go in because I don't need electronics right now and I didn't feel like being hassled by whatever Mumbai has that passes for a Circuit City Salesman. Just imagining that quickened my step. After a few blocks filled with a slightly better type of street-side cafe and shop assembly I could see nothing but slums ahead so I turned around, slightly confused about where I was, but knowing I could backtrack. I took a side street that I thought would take me where I wanted to go. It said "No Entry" but I figured that meant cars and I'd be OK. I was soon overtaken by bikes and motorcycles going the "wrong" way, which were soon followed by cars and vans, so I guess that sign was meant to apply only to people who have time to go around anyway. I got back to another street lined with shops, turned right by instinct and after about 200 feet realized that I had been here before. That's how little and how much I picked up the first time through. I got some, enough to recognize, but not right away. I did a 180 and soon found my landmark and the way back to the hotel.
Now though, I wanted to see a little of the more familiar part of the area. I walked up the street that I am driven on every day. It has hotels and coffee shops and some shops I actually feel like I could be comfortable buying something in, but as soon as I hit that area I started to become a target. Young guys in nice clothes selling maps and wanting to befriend me. A small young teen in rags hanging on my leg begging for coins until I pushed him away and picked him off by going close to a car, (while still trying to deal with the map guy and wondering if this is a setup.) I walk up the street to the corner and then I decide to turn around and head back because I am suddenly tired and the stress of the unknown is starting to get me. The map guy is disappointed that such an interesting guy is not going to walk with him farther. Then comes a small woman crying (in Hindi) that she needs food and can I help her and hanging on me and when I try to move away she says something about her baby and I realize that the tiny package in her arms is a very tiny malnourished child, either less than two weeks old or starving or both. The baby (on cue almost it seems) starts to cry. Bear in mind that this is in an upscale part of Mumbai and even though the street is the same as everywhere, broken and chaotic, these shops on this strip are for the people living in the beach hotels and the upscale neighborhood nearby. This is not the black hole of Calcutta. The discontinuity of this kind of horror juxtaposed with my obviously staggering wealth and health in an area where things aren't that bad generally and the pickings are good for beggars of all kinds and don't I want to help but what if it's all a scam to distact me so the other kids can pick my wallet and what are you thinking are you crazy that baby is dying! Then that's it. Brain Freeze. I just want to get away and get back to the hotel. I dodge some cars to pick off the woman and her baby. I skip all the stores. I pry the same kid off my leg as I run the same gauntlet I came through to get here. I walk back to the hotel as fast as my tired legs will allow, through the security screens and into the welcoming and air conditioned world of the tourist hotel. "Hello Mr. John! Welcome back! Are you joining us for dinner?" Not just now. I need to get into a space where I can get my brain to work again. I didn't actually expect that kind of thing to throw me that hard but as I keep saying it seems: This is India. You take it easy, one thing at a time, because if you just dive right in, it gets overwhelming really fast. I think it might be like learning to surf. I was doing fine, riding a few small waves and then I was caught inside, hammered by a wave I didn't see coming.
Sorry I don't have pictures of this day. I didn't want to be a tourist snapping jpegs of people sipping sodas in the street or shopping for shirts or begging or just going about their business. I wanted to be as invisible as a six foot redhead can be in Mumbai. Probably that was a fools errand, but I didn't want to be voyeur either. Not on this first outing for me. It would have been way better if I had not gone out alone, but the way it worked out I just felt like I was missing it if I stayed in the hotel for another whole weekend. I don't regret going out, but it probably would have been a different and even completely fun experience if it was a shared experience. I'll get a little company next time.
As I walked back into the hotel with all it's amenities I felt like that guy in Apocalypse Now: "Never get out of the boat! Never get out of the boat!" but I know that's not right. I will get out of the boat and I will get to know India. It is a place which asks the west a lot of questions. (They say it has some answers, too.) To be continued…
This is the upscale street where I walked near Juhu Beach
No comments:
Post a Comment