Bombay to Burgh

Unfortunately, this project never maintained enough steam to qualify as a true in media res blog.  It was naive to think that writing extended entries from crowded and sometimes unreliable Internet cafes here was the way to go, but now I know for next time at least.  (I am smarting from just having lost a 700-word post due to the machine logging me off at the end of my alotted time).  Plus, my travel schedule eroded what time I could have used to get some more frequent writings up here.

I’ll not be updating here until after I return to the U.S., when I will have an opportunity to transcribe some of the things I’ve kept on paper.  Until then, feel free to ask me about what happened and maybe we can talk it over a non-Nescafe coffee

Yep, so I am in Pune for a short time, waiting to get to Mumbai today evening (Indian english for tonight :)  Read back over the next-to-last post, updated with some supplemental info that you may or may not find interesting.  Apologies for erstwhile readers who now think me a tad on the salck side - I might as well have tried to email or blog via smoke signal from some of the places I have been…Sorry so sloppy, as we used to say…

For once: a post unhindered by my typical fulsome writing.  Today I went to Qutb Minar, a Mughal monument that is probaly the most imposing thing I have seen thus far.  The minar itself is a fluted spire, clad in a facade of red sandstone that is carved with Islamic calligraphy.  About half of my pictures today were closeups of this amazing script, which has endured unbelieveably through exposure to the elements.  Posting these later, of course :)  And yes, I am backing up my camera nightly to CD-R.  The minar is surrounded by ruins of various other lesser structures, none as well-reserved as this thing, which is like Delhi’s own psychic exclamation point.  I ambled around the ruins for a while, and for the first time really was approached by some folks who wanted to take pictures with me for some odd reason - I guess this is one place in the world where my Scots-Irish pallor lends somewhat of a more exotic flair than I ever experienced before…It’s kind of a weird sensation, but everyone’s just friendly and curious, generally.  I explored some weird places in the site that perhaps were not part of the exhibit.  There was a raised area that appeared to be a grated-over well of some kind, but probably was an electrical access tunnel just lined with rubble from the ruins.   I had to climb up to to get some pictures of its bore between the bars of the grate, and noticed several pigeons roosting in its walls, under the surface of the ground.  Of course once they saw me, a bunch of little kids followed suit and clambered over to see the well.  Kids at these places crack me up - a group of youngsters playing outside of a functioning mosque spied me taking some snaps of said mosque and came over to ask me to take some fotos of them as well.  I obliged and even got some shots of their uncles, dressed in salwar kameez and with the traditional Islamic caps and beards.  It was mostly “Salaams” and “Khuda hafeez” all around, because they couldn’t understand much English at all when I asked for their email so I could send off the pictures for them, and my practical Hindi ran out quite fast.

I took my leave after a few hours at qutb and took an autorickshaw to Delhi Haat at my friend A.’s recommendation.  The rickshaw-wallah smelled a bakra, indeed.  “I will take youto a very nice shopping center beforehand, and if you go in for 10 minutes, they will give me a gas coupon.  You do not need to buy anything, bhayyia,” he said.  “Yeah, well, I’m not really intereted in that.  Delhi haat jana hai,” I called out over the snarl of the rickshaw’s pancake engine.  Dude went to this place anyhow and disgusted, I argued with him for a minute or so before jsut relenting and going into the place, intendingin not

have to go - entry later…

It’s been a while, huh?  Short post b/c I have little time now in New Delhi as I wait for my friend A to finish getting ready so we can go to his office and I can leave for Qutb Minar and Delhi Haat today: I lost my camera due to carelessness or theft two days ago in or near the Mumbai Mahalaxmi train station, it may have fallen in or outside of a cab somewhere between where i picked it up in Mumbai Central to the CRY office to get my tix to Delhi.  So, I am without my 200 snaps of Diwali, the CRY site visit to Ahmedanagar and at least 179 other priceless memories .  The ensuing depression over this was sufficient enough to keep me away from blogging and fixated for a couple of days on trying to find the camera through my connections at the train station (thatnks to my hospital visit of last week!), but it’s like trying to find a needle in a galaxy-sized haystack (”lost your camera?  Oh yeah, we’ll get right on that - you are complaint # 999,576,301.”) but my friend tried his best and for this I am thankful.

So much to write about in the meantime - i have kept copiuous notes in my journal, so a later update is imminent.  The site visit was incredible, my first bout with traveler’s…sickeness, seeing Om Shanti Om in the theater (skip it - three good songs, and an otherwise stilted plot), my friend J. bailing me out of a jam once again, and more madness at the domestic airport that resulte din a minor phone crisis upon my arrival in Delhi.  Red fort in Delhi and chandni chowk are so far, the activities i have taken in here.  My friend A. here has put me up in his spacious marble-clad flat in Noida, where the traffic sometimes approaches Mumbai levels but the greenery and open space is a somewhat welcome break from the congestion of Mumbai - though I do miss the chaos at times, the impossibly sustained level of distraction just about everywhere in Mumbai, for me, was becoming a liability, at least until i give myself an opportunity to get used to it.  Time to go - more later today, I hope~

So, ths post was scribed a full 7 days ago - I am now deperately trying to catch up on my paper journal of the incredible events of the past several days in Kolhapur, surveying a women’s cooperative-run sugar factory (website at www.crystalcanesugar.com) and hanging out with my friend J. and her family.  Today was spent in the Hill Station of Panchgini, among breathtaking mountain vistas and a morning spent on the largest plateau in Asia, located in this section of the Western Ghats.  Also was privied to the best damn chai in India, flavored with lemongrass and a handful of sugar in every cup.

The plan for the next visit is to ABSOLUTELY travel with a laptop; blogging was an impossibility given my transit schedule, timetable, and the availability of net access in some of these places I have been over the past week.  I am in a cybercafe in Pune now, my friend J. very patiently waiting in the car outside, so I’ll try to update again at least a few times over the next three days before my (somewhat reluctant) return to the U.S.!

On Monday, I decided to get an early start and make my way up P.D’Mello road to the gate of India, located near a nexus of museums and art buildings in whatI believe is called the Kolapur block (actually this was Colaba, not a block but an area nearby).  Yesterday I did get the chance to walk a bit further than where I turned to go to the gate, and I wish that I had ventured farther on Monday, since I missed out on seeing the Chhatripati Shivaji Art Museum (this formerly had a British name, something like Henry James art museum, but it was changed when Bombay became Mumbai back in he mid-1990s).  The day was stinking hot and humid like a Pittsburgh August, and I asked directions on the way in Hindi with some of the street hawkers, one of whom tried to sell me an enormous dumbbell-shaped balloon.  There are so many of these hawkers around the tourist type areas, all selling gimcracks of dubious quality and value.  Some cases look to be just the epitome of futility: as I approached the gate of India, I noticed one guy sitting alone surrounded by his stock of furry cheap children’s toys, working a squeaky hand puppet in the hot afternoon sun.

So, India Gate was never actually used, according to my cursory reading of lonely planet, since the British raj ended about a month prior to the queen rolling into Bombay. she was supposed to come through the massive stone-hewn gate on the way into town; I suppose that this was just meant to be a symbolic display of imperial pomp and power, but all in vain.  The inscription says something to the effect that the gate was erected to commemorate this occasion, which only further enhances the monument’s status as a big ‘ol lame duck. While I was taking a few snaps and unsuccessfully trying to talk to the other goras milling about - I keep screwing up and trying to talk to Europeans in English, who probably like Americans considerably less than your average friendly Indian - a sadhu-type gentleman sidled up to me and in one fell swoop blesses me by placing his hand on my head, ties a red and orange thread around my wrist, and asks for a rs. 200 donation for the whole shmear. I had nothing to offer other than a ragged 100 rupee note that nobody else would accept (this is a weird concept - nobody really wants to take money that is worn past a certain point; my friend J. says that it’s still legal, but people just seem to like fresh notes…).  He accepted and I moved along before another con spotted me as a potential mark.  A couple guys did in fact approach me to offer me tours, showing me laminated cards describing the ferry trips to Elephanta Island (this will be a destination upon my return to Mumbai) and a/c car laps around various religious and historical sites in the city, but I had some other plans to kill time until I was to meet with J. and her family and friends for a Diwali dinner at her place.
I took a train to Mumbai Central Station to meet with some friends in the area who canceled the plans at the last minute, leaving me to explore the bustling area around the station.  I crossed a typical intersection congested with the typical endless, chaotic motorcade of autorickshaws and motorcycles to pick up a narrow street overgrown on each side with trees whose foliage hung overhead.  Some vendors and shack dwellings were on each side, and little children ran out to stare at me wide-eyed on my way past on a couple of occasions.  I was to meet these friends near Ram Jagjivan Hospital, which I accessed through a metal gate past a water vendor where I picked up ek pani ki bottle to stave off the heat and humidity.  Freed by my open schedule I figured I’d just walk into the hospital to see what it was like, never having seen any vestige of the Indian health care system before.
There was no a/c in the general lobby/reception area, and though I am no expert on such matters the conditions within the hospital probably would not have met western standards.  However, I’ve read some things about how people in developing countries are far more resistant to germs than their western counterparts, owing to the lack of the kind of facilities that we are used to. My first cold in several months which I have been fighting off for the past couple of days may be testament to this. I met a man near an administration office who introduced himself as Bala, and he was kind enough to sit down with me for a chai and answer some questions about the hospital. RJ hospital is a 350-bed facility expressly for employees of western railway and their families (there are about 110,000 employees in the Gujarat/Mumbai/Jaipur corridor alone, and over 1 million employees of the Indian railway country wide).  At the time of our short talk, Bala was working on compensation forms for victims of last year’s synchronized bomb blasts, which happened very nearby the Mumbai Central station if not actually at the station itself - it was a sobering thought to actually see some of the half-filled forms on his desk and think that there’s a person affected by such an attack behind each file.  In addition to this compensation, employees normally receive 100 percent of their health care expenses as part of their employment, paid by the company through the hospital.  Services offered include surgery, psychiatric care, and a host of other medical procedures, though he explained that they have “tie-ups” (another curious little expression I’ve heard here) with other hospitals when medical imaging technology like CT or MRI is required. In the interest of comparison, I brought up that my father had just had a CT scan prior to my trip, which cost $3,000. Bala, shocked, said that in India such a scan costs a total of $30 USD. Now whether this is due to economy of scale or the tyranny of managed care I’ll put up for debate I had the opportunity to speak with a few doctors while there too, which was truly unexpected. It’s great how for now I find myself being able to glean some interest out of even the most mundane activity over here…
Moving on to activity that is not mundane - I have a meeting at the CRY HQ this afternoon, so a detailed dispatch of the Diwali dinner (which was awesome on all fronts: food, company and the beautiful Diwali lamp that her family gifted to me). I can’t upload photos here easily, since the USB ports on these machines are blocked with the computer hutches, but photos of some of these delectable dishes are among the 150 OR SO SNAPS I’VE TAKEN OF MY TRIP SO FAR.  Uuf, there’s that sticky shift key again - time to grab a taxi - phir milenge!

Forgive typos - spellcheck will cause this machine to hang up and/or crash… 

So, what I’ve found about blogging is this: Often I attempt to justify putting this off in favor of actualyl going out and having new experiences, thus racking up even more to write about and getting deeper into the memory hole.  So, before I leave for the CRY project in Ashti, Maharashtra (which entails a 10-hour train ride followed by a 45-minute jeep ride to the small village, and the threat of chronic nerve damage for me as I white-knuckle a pen and attempt to document stuff for this blog on pad) I want to make sure I’ve got all my ducks or in this case, vicious-looking Mumbai crows, in a row

As a warm_up< here are some capsule items pertaining to what I really have come to appreciate about this place - by no means an exhaustive list:

• In general, the steps on the stairways here are a bit shorter in height.  This is also helpful for firangs with a 28-inch inseam.
• The loud, sharp kissing sound that men in the street make when trying to get someone’s attention or to get them to move out of the way.
• Patriotic/sentimental messages on English signs marred by a slight grammatical error: ex. “If we do not take responsibility then we will not grow inch.”
• The affinity for abbreviations and acronyms, CRY for example.  Also, ones that are maybe a little bit funny sounding when pronounced, but shorter than the expanded form.
• That the hotel in which I am staying, Hotel Manama, is named for Manama the capital of Bahrain.  My brother is now staying in Bahrain, in Manama - this is a coincidence of metaphysical propotions to me.
• Rapidly opening and closing one’s fingers against the thumb to signify “wait five minutes”.
• Frequent use of the expression “Tom, Dick and Harry…”
• The incredible sense of balance exhibited by those Mumbaites who tote all manner of heavy items on their heads (laundry, cookware, etc…)
• How the ladies ride on their men’s motorcycles side-saddle, fearlessly trundling through traffic jams that defy logic.
• The concept of “joota”, for which there is no clear English equivalent other than, “I drank from this cup so it is likely to have my spit on it, therefore it is not advised nor proper etiquette that you drink from same cup.”

Speaking of motorcycles - they are really, really popular here.  I’ve nearly been hit on more than one occasion by these guys, who make full use out of the maneuverability afforded by the little Hondas and other Asian-brand cycles (as they are called locally - more British english) to cut corners and move along through intersections choked with busses, cars, txis and autorickshaws.  My chance of finding Harley Davidson souvenirs for my biker friends back home is probaly slim to none, as I doubt if there is a hog in this entire country.  Even the films Dhoom and Dhoom 2 galvanized the urban fascination with these crotch-rocket types a la the Huyabusa though many of the cycles I see on the streets look like they may have been rescued from the back of a garage in Lawrenceville.

After my extended blog session on Monday, I made my way to the Mumbai office of Child Rights and You, which was about a 25-minute taxi ride spent with a friendly Muslim driver who smoked only slightly more than I used to.  On the way, we went over the Chay Jay (phonetic, as I have no idea how to spell this) flyover, and then back into the city streets, past the imposingly fortified Arthur Road jail.  Tejas’ friend A. later told me that if you got sent there, it was over - all varieties of criminals were placed thereto await trial, and the joint had the guards with Kalashnikovs stationed about to drive this point home.  It kind of reminded me of the scene in Ishtar, when the hotel was being buttressed with razor wire and those I-beam roadblock things that look like huge toy jacks when martial law was imposed.  Ok, so let that be the first and last time I reference Ishtar, though I think about that movie from time to time based on some other stuff I see here.  I got to the CRY office very early: My meeting was slated for 2 p.m. and it was now only about 12:30, but fortunately, M. in the office was free to receive me and showed me to the CRY shop next door, where I dropped some Rs. on gifts for people here and home.  There was a nice variety of merchandise available, most of it produced by artisans in communities where CRY actively supports other NGO-run projects.  I bought a 3-D wooden cow puzzle for myself, a pretty wire-hewn bell and candlestick as a Diwali gift for a friend, and a few books as well, one of which is a collection of poetry chosen by prominent Indians and published for CRY’s benefit (will link once I get to a fully functional terminal and the tingling in my keyboard-impaired left-hand little finger caused by this cursed shoulder bag subsides).  All in all, they had some nice things that were it not for shipping being prohibitively expensive, would be nice to have for sale in the U.S.  I did offer my services as a CRY “mule” to bring some items on the way back, but we’ll see if I can bring enough in an extra checked suitcase or two to make this worthwhile.

The afternoon was spent in meeting with M. as well as two other CRY staffers who provided overviews on a variety of topics.  One thing that struck me were the efforts in selling to a charity-accustomed public CRY’s advocacy model - i.e., informing and promoting awareness and dialogue about child rights issues among those affected, erstwhile donors and supporters, and policy makers/government.  Often times we are asked at CRY Pittsburgh if it’s possible to sponsor a child or a project directly, which is simply not how CRY’s philosophy works.  Under such a sponsorship arrangement (of the stripe we’ve all seen advertised on late-night or daytime television), the child’s identity is conventionally revealed to the donor, and some correspondence is encouraged.  This arrangement presumes that simply because one supports a child through donation, s/he is entitled to know the child’s identity, and is free to cut off funding and support when s/he desires.  By functioning as an enabler, rather than an interventionist, (i.e. promoting local NGO partners that operate on the plane of child rights issues, rather than coming into a community and prescribing solutions that may not suit the area’s needs) and demanding accountability where due from government and policy makers, CRY takes its role beyond the idea of ‘charity’.  Another strategy that CRY employs - fascinating to me, since children are not normally regarded in society in general as autonomous beings that have the ability to control the variables and conditions of their socialization structure - is reaching out to the children themselves through CRY clubs, which children in participating schools may join after one year of child rights instruction.  The clubs highlight among children their own entitlements and rights, as well as where the rights of other less-fortunate children are being infringed and/or outright ignored.  Among these means of getting the kids to consider and question: Critical thinking and analysis of archetypes and stories.  A Hans Christian Andersen story, The Children’s Prattle, was offered as an example of a piece that could encourage classroom dialogue on social stratification.  These individual topics under CRY’s rubric are all the more intriguing to me, and I’ll no doubt be taking in even more over the next weekend, when things really pick up.  Also notable is the confirmation of a CRY project visit in New Delhi later this month.  Incidentally, I can’t beleive it hasn’t been a month already here, what with the hypercompressed pace of things…
After a lunch of potato and achhar (spicy pickle) and the chhappatis that are inflated and fried just short of being crisp (forget what these are called), we continued our meetings until nealry 6, when I was to meet with A., best friend of my friend and compadre in CRY, Tejas.  His office was at the end of a convluted taxi ride through the congested rush hour streets.  Before catching the cab I took a few snaps of a roadside shrine that abutted an apartment building where people leaned over their porch railings and laundry of every conceivable hue hung to dry in the breeze.  A. greeted me outside his office and we set off again in a taxi to another location where we’d have to pick up an autorickshaw.  Taxis are permitted only in certain areas; most of the suburbs are in autorickshaw territory, it seems.  On the way we talked about CRY and the pace of life in Mumbai - he agreed with my impression that everyone seemes to be working constantly here, sometimes morning till late night every day, and he filled me in about some of the time-sink that is his daily commute (sometimes four hours total on the suburban train from Borivali to his office).  We also talked music, specifically the disproportionate and persistent popularity of Bryan Adams throughout the subcontinent.  His parents were diplomats, and I think he learned early he could sell himself to a loyal fan base of folks in Asia and the Middle East who craved western sounds.  Too bad Black Flag didn’t have the same idea…It was on a gridlocked flyover that our autorickshaw sputtered and died; the driver got out and pushed it to the curb leaving me to wait while A. hailed another.  The traffic, again, was totally unbelievable…amazing.  Mumbai drivers are like surgeons in the sense that they can navigate through the smallest available space with the minimum distance bewteen their car and another cycle, pedstrain, buss, wahetver, and never have so much as a gentle sideswipe.  I did see my first accident yesterday, however, right in front of the hotel.  Just a mild rear-end between two Marutis. 

I was treated to a wonderful dinner of rich, ghee-soaked pav bhaji at Tejas’ parents place, plus the company of A., who lives neacross the way in the same building, and the rest of Tejas’ family.  People seem to have more of a family-homestead approach to dwelling places here, too - Tejas’ dad told me that the apartment next door housed four generations of the family under one roof (great-grandfather, grandfather, father, and son, age ranging from nearly 90 to 4 or 5 years…).  We heard (and saw) fireworks bursting in the distance during our meal, and I talked with Tejas’ niece about favorite filmstars - great way to break the ice with the kids, I have found.  She likes Preity Zinta, who is OK in my book.  After dinner, A. took me back to the suburban station on his motorcycle _ which was my first_ever ride on a cycle, period.  I found myself wishing I’d taken a movie with my camera as we went through the busy streets loaded with Diwali lantern vendors and teeming with late-night activity, as per usual here, everywhere.  After having kulfi (rich, Indian ice cream) at a roadside stand, he showed me to the terminal and we parted ways, me bound back for Churchgate on a nearly empty car.

I HAVE YET TO EVEN BROACH MY Tuesday and this computer’s malfunctioning shift key is causing much vexation…i’ll catch up later with some reports and ruminations from the INDIA GATE walking trip i took yesteday, my afternoon wandering about the Ram Jagjivani hospital, and more on a very special first Diwali.  Until then, here is an excerpt from an email I sent to a friend about the goings on of the last couple  of nights…would that my blog entry tomorrow about today’s activities be just about blogging here at this hot little cybercafe that I have monopolized for the past two hours…

mumbai is absolutely incredible, man…far beyond my expectations.  the “guide” who hassles me outside my hotel (today he wanted Rs. 150 against any service that I may reuire from him for the remainder of my stay gets a bit tiresome to deal with but other than that it’s been 100% awesome. 

as for the rest of the time here, I rode a fast train to Bandra last evening - it was packed-crowded (ed.- must elaborate upon later: q - How is ridership on Mumbai suburban trains during rush hour like show audiences in the late 1990s U.S. hardcore scene? a - Normally there is no band playing, but other than that, pretty similar.), like total inability to answer the cell phone in your pocket crowded (the guy next to me may have felt it vibrate in my pocket).  i attempted to jump off the train as it was slowing (actually, was more or less forced out) and nearly took out a queue of passengers on the platform, as i had not sufficiently estimated my own momentmum.  whoops! 

i attended my first diwali party 3 nights ago and was invite for a diwali dinner at my friend J.’s place last evening, where her family presented me with a beautiful oil lamp…it was really special.  this whole trip has been really something else, man…really something else…

Months ago, I was DJing a graduation party for a Gujarati family in the North Hills.  While I was getting some food during a break I was mentioning to  my friend’s daughter that I would have worn my raw silk kurta, but I thought that it might have been a little too “overboard” for the occasion.  ”Come on, Adam,” she said, “We’re Indians.  Everything is overboard.”

 A TR-909 kick-drum pulse blasting for two hours straight at 140 bpm at a sound pressure level of some 100 dB, is indeed, “overboard.”  So it was at the packed, exclusive (evidently) Bombay club Poison that I was nearly struck stone deaf by this juggernaut soundsystem.  It was like listening to Bollywood remixes and deep house as engineered by SUNN 0))) .  Out on the dance floor with my new friends, you really didn’t have a choice but to move - the concussion of the bass resounded in the solar plexus and pummeled your eardrums.  It was kind of astonishing: I have seen Khanate twice and it was not even close the sustained volume of Poison’s system.  I eventually stuck napkins in to blot it out, and my friend J. and I retreated to an area off the floor to attempt to talk over the din (not successful). The place was totally unreal, though - I had clubbed moderately in Pittsburgh before, at Metropol and the Firehouse Lounge mainly - Poison was a quantum leap beyond either of these places, though, with a full-on laser light display and no fewer than three DJs mixing back and forth from the booth all night.  Considerably less smoky than any Pittsburgh club, it was.  I’m not really big on the club scene - if you know me you might be a little surprised by this report on my evening in the chic lane.  But if there is the promise of dancing to the latest filmi sangeet (”Dard-e-Disco” from the new Om Shanti Om was an early banger) fresh from the source, you can bet I would at least devote one evening to tearin’ it up.  Especially if accompanied by such wonderful new friends as it was. 

As have been my last few days, it wound up being an overall “masala” evening, rife with extremes of high and low class and culture.  I was picked up at Chatripati Shivaji Terminus (at hte McDonald’s nearby) by N., a young pediatrician friend of J.’s, who came ot a moment too soon as I was trying to stave off the advances of a street kid who clutched at my arm begging for a paisa and another guy who could speak very little to no english, who had lead me to the McDoald’s from the corner where I had been waiting, then demanded Rs. 100 for making the 100-foot stroll.  With the both of them hands out in my face, I couldn’t do anything other than have a mild panic, tell them both “maf kijiye, ji nahi,” and turn to walk briskly toward where N. sat at the intersection in his souped-up Honda.  Again, I tried to walk around to the driver’s side to get in (bear in mind I am in the habit of walking around to the U.S. passenger’s side when riding, which is the driver’s side over here - it is a tough habit to break) but corrected myself at the last moment and got in the proper door.  The street kid gave chase and actually held open the door, cotinuing his pitch at the both of us now.  N. hollered at the guy, and drove away letting the door slam as we pulled out of the intersection.  Again, it is hard not to feel like American Bastard #1 in these situations with beggars and street kids, but I’ve got to reassure myself that this is not the type of help that I am here to offer.

Despite the unnerving half-hour I had prior to that (I had made some friends on the corner where I was wating before, speaking in what Hindi I could muster and talking about music, mostly.  A friendly lot, though one guy once I told him I was from the U.S. said something like ‘India No. 1′ and stuck a middle finger up at me.  Maybe this means something else here, but I wasn’t really offended either way

AfterPoison, J., N. and our two other friends went to Land’s End Taj, a really super-swank American style place overlooking the Arabian Sea.  Again, we drove past Shahrukh Khan’s house (which looks like an armed compound/Monticello hybrid)  and if I had some assurance I wouldn;t be cuffed and stuffed, I would have had N. stop so I could take a photo.  We ate pizza at the restaurant (I had Indian food in Germany back in the Creation is Crucifixion touring days, why not Italian in India?) and talked about cheap dentistry in India and a host of other things that I can’t rightly recall right now.  Honestly, the excitement and overload of being in a new enviroment is a lot to deal with sometimes.  Lagging for a day on the blog is almost a fatal move, so I hope not to lapse this long again!

N. drove me back to the hotel, maintaining about 95 mph on a straightaway (”Just sit back and enjoy the ride, man…” he said with a masti-infused smile before slamming it into high gear - this Honda is an automatic/standard hybrid transmission, the likes of which I’d never seen before).  We got back to the hotel at just before 4 a.m., and N. told me I could call him if ever in trouble here; it’s an attitude that again, is really comforting but not unexpected from friends I meet here, as everyone seems to value the importance of being a proper host.

I woke up the next day around 10, with barely enough sleep to consider the day’s prospects.  I wanted to ride the train to near Bandra where I was to meet with some other friends in Santa Cruz, then J. for lunch, so I took a taxi to Churchgate station, hopped a train to Santa Cruz (without much incident in ordering tickets) and emerged in a neighborhood that appeared to be predominantly Catholic.  John was my contact here, and after meeting him at a Portuguese church that was at the end of a short, bumpy autorickshaw ride (my first) past myriad open-air food stalls.  He invited me to lunch at his home nearby where I got to meet his wife, father, son, and daughter, who were all very sweet.  His young daughter was full of quesitons about school in the U.S., so I had to really jog my memory about what it was like when I was her age, making extrapolations for the time elapsed of course.  I was able to draw on what I heard from my aunt who teaches and my recently graduated cousin.  The little girl (named Michelle - John’s family is Roman Catholic) was really impressed by all of the extracirricular activities available.  She said that it was hard to learn English based on the instruction they recieve in her school, but she spoke rather well.  Shades of Thomas Friedman before me: She also said that her sister - who works in a call center - has no accent anymore when speaking English (undoubtedly having had the training to neutralize it). 

After leaving John’s place - his wife made me an omelet and chai before I left to meet J. at the entrance of Bombay University.  We went to a cafe called Barista, where as we sat and talked, a number of ostentatiously dressed women in red saris entered.  Much to my enthrallment, J. pointed out that they were not women at all, but hijra (eunuchs) - essentially the Indian equivalent of transgendered persons.  For all things and persons, a purpose here in India.  The hijra particularly, have an interesting racket aside from (I believe) prostitution:  Groups of them will show up at weddings and christenings and basically dance and create a ruckus until they are paid to leave.  The catch is that it is considered good fortune for them to show up.  J. asked if I had been hassled by a group of them yet, but I was more interested in getting a picture taken with the lot of them - though this would have likely cost me Rs. 50 + strong possibility of public embarrassment among the more conservative passersby…maybe another time.

There are a lot of stray dogs just wandering around throughout the city, even in the nicer areas of Bandra (where J. and some of her friends live).  They are the shorthaired, yellow dogs that seem really tame and never bark.  I see a number of rail-thin cats slinking around the food stalls, waiting for handouts or perhaps hunting rats.  An enormous dead rat was lying in the middle of P.D’Mello Road (right outside the Internet cafe where I blog from) the other day, and occasionally one can smell them where they have crawled and expired.  Maybe there was a reason why I had to deal with the sudden rat infestation at my apartment this past spring - I can say I didn’t go into this trip inexperienced in seeing these things :)  Just around Fort, noise hasn’t been a major problem - again, thanks to the Southside trains and traffic that normally accompany my evening hours.  Though yesterday there was a cacophony outside my window of grinding powertools from the construction next door, an occasional rooster crowing, and a cheap car alarm (?) that was playing “It’s a small world after all…” over and over.

Last night I went to a Diwali party at J.’s building in Bandra, and met some more friends, neighbors, and family.  Diwali, as I understand it, is a celebration that takes place based upon the lunar calender every year, commemorating the end of Rama’s 14-year exile ewither before or after he rescues his bride Sita from the demon kind Ravana according to the Ramayana (reader in the know: please correct and/or expound upon, as linking is soooo inefficient from this terminal).  The trees in the courtyard were strung with colored lights and lanterns hung in a few of the windows.  food was incredible and of a variety like I’ve never had before - most importantly, safe for me :)  There was dancing and the little kids got gifts, and I got to attend wearing a new green striped kurta that J. gifted me with my first night in town.  The party did not include the traditional “bursting of crackers”, since the kids in attendance told their parents that they were concerned about harm that fireworks do to the environment.  After making plans to visit a special cooperative project in southern Maharashtra that J.’s family is involved with, she and her friend drove me home where I crashed after yet another exhausting day of taking in incomparably new stuff.

 Ok, that’s going to be about it for this entry - today I go to the CRY office to meet and greet some of the folks whom I’ve not already and to see the CRY staffers I met in ATL last month. 

So much more has happened over the last few days than I can possibly get into here:  Ask me about the train rides, meeting a guy who worked in Miami and offered helpful advice, another guy and girl who offered my possible extra work, hanging out in Bandra East, waiting for my ride while testing out my Muslim greeting (”Salaam”, short and simple) on some who stopped to say hello (I met a adorable little baby named Osama, held by his dad who wore western dress and his mother, who peered as amicably as she could through a slit in a black full-body hijab - these were a mild shock to me at first, but I’m getting used to it.)  Oh, and being totally lost in Girigaon district, wandering down dark grottoes past one-room open textile shops and chai-wallahs and gnarled banyan trees that grew out of broken foundations…I could go on an on with naked details but Churchgate station calls, so namaskar until tomorrow…

The cavernous interior of Mumbai Main Post Office came as a shock to me yesterday - it’s an enormous, cathedral-height building conveniently located from my hotel - when I wandered in the main entrance in search of some postcards.  The sight of the circular front desk knocked me silly, as I recognized it from the Sanjay Dutt hit movie ‘Lage Raho Munnabhai’, which my friend Mahesh and I took in at Northway Cinema last year.  The scene where the old man can’t pay his tax and starts disrobing right there in the Post Office in protest?  Yep, that was filmed right where I stood.  The gentleman who helped my with the post cards confirmed it all and I was just left shaking my head (not wobbling, yet) in cheery disbelief at the surprises this city has to offer, right under my nose.

So I left the office with postcards i tow and the promise of a large printout of Ganipati (Lord Ganesh) from a picture taken during the Ganesh Festival last month, courtesy of Choudary, the man who was so helpful with my purchase.  I went back to the hotel to clean up for dinner, as I was to meet a friend who stays in Bandra later that evening.  Coordinating a pickup later that night was difficult, as Friday traffic around the Chatrapati Shivaji Termius (the main rail station) was heavy beyond belief, but we eventually met up alongside the post office and sped off in her little Maruti-brand car (about the size of a Ford Focus, very economical for the city) toward Bandra.  The drive was a virtual core sample the mind boggling disparity of Mumbai’s neighborhoods - shack dwellings propped up against high-rise apartments in some areas, multi-million dollar buildings (like the one she pointed out that belonged to Bollywood star Salman Khan) and the vast empty beaches - apparently nobody hangs out on the beach owing to the pollution in the water.  Bandra is a most popular well-to-do suburb in Mumbai, though it has its share of ripped up bumpy roads (”No worse than some parts of Western PA,” I resassured her) and the occasional destitute beggar.  One real wakeup call came en route, in the form of a little girl, traditionally dressed, who approached the car at a traffic light and tapped on the window, telling my friend that if she gave her some money she’d be blessed with a son.  Since I am fresh from some research on the topic, it was an upsetting confirmation of the pervasiveness of the attitude of son-preference, and how the tradtion relegates women as second-class citizens in Indian society.   Little girls often do not receive the equal quality nutrition, education or care as their male siblings, if they are even born at all.  The availability of prenatal sex determination tests such as ultrasonography, offered illegally and at affordable prices by unscrupulous providers, has contributed to a real crisis in India right now - that of sex ratio disparity.  Due to son preference, familes desirous of a son may opt to abort a fetus determined to be female through one of these tests, then try again for the boy who can ensure the parent’s afterlife by lighting the funeral pyre (girls cannot perform this ritual), inherit property, pass along the family name, and not be a fiscal liability to a family in regions where dowry is still practiced.  In Maharashtra, the state where I am, the ratio of children ages 0 to 6 years stands at approximately 930 girls per 1000 boys.  If left to continue, this problem could lead to a real threat to the very social fabric of this country which has made such great strides economically in the past ten years.  Improving the treatment of the girl child is something which CRY is quite dedicated to, though thoughts of sustainable solutions didn’t make me feel any less uneasy about responding to the little girl with a polite pranam, and a “ji nahi, beti,” when she hit me up for some cash, even singing “Jingle Bells” to me through the window glass, in a truly Lynchian moment.   There are no guarantees that any money given would go directly to someone who is exploiting her to beg.  To me, it was perhaps more disturbing since a child was the one acknowledging the son-preference phenomena through her pitch to my friend.  Who knows, though - Maybe I will cave and give a paisa next time, becuase it was a rough scene.

I was stuffed after dinner and ready to turn in early; I think that the jet lag was not totally out of my system, and I slept until the hotel attendant buzzed my door at 7:30 a.m. for some reason - he didn’t enunciate clearly enough for me to understand when I answered the door half asleep (and I do hope it is not 100% tacky to answer the door half-dressed) and I went back to bed for a few hours.  I was to meet a friend in Byculla this afternoon, for which I took a cab and got my first taste of a fleece job.  Young thin man working as ‘tour guide’ spots obvious forgeinger angling for a taxi-ride, offers to make sure I have a fair fare, and jumps in the cab along with me.  The ride there was fairly interseting, as we drove through some really dilapidated slum areas - lots of lean-to style tarp-enclosed shacks with naked screaming little kids playing under running hoses, and in the muddy berm, and curiously smartly dressed women in saris mulled about toting water or tending to chores (maybe ‘when you’re poor, dress rich’ holds true here).  There is so much actitivy at every level that it seems all of the people act as one immense, often brightly hued organism, heaving and recoiling through whatever available space there is.  It sounds scary or threatening, but it’s more exhilirating, if I hadn’t mentioned that before.  After turning down a bidi (one of the cheap, hand-rolled cigarettes popular here) from my new guide, he told me a little about how he was a fan of Archies comics, and that there are Indian characters in the books now (news to me).  I told him a bit about Pittsburgh, using my standby line “It’s 6 hours West of NYC”, and we chatted some more briefly about Fort - he told me that there are junkies who shoot up right on the curb near where I couaght the cab, but again I was oblivious to that every time I passed that area.  Drugs here have to be the worst of ideas.  Some younger guy passed me really closeby on the sidewalk today, hissing “smoke marijuana?” in my ear, perhaps hoping for a sale from this evident hippie (maybe I should have got that trim before I left).  But the proximity of Afghanistan has to be a factor i the availability of this stuff.  Anyway, I will stick to achhar for any mind-altering experience.  Byculla, though - wow, now this is what I thought it would look like when I was going to be in a developing country.  More poor folks lined the cobbled/dirt streets, most of them friendly, some calling out in English as I passed.  Goats and chickens roamed freely, among motorcycle and autorickshaw traffic, and I passed one shack that seemed to double as a pigeon coop/food stall.  A group of little kids who were playig cricket in the yard near where I met my friend was enthralled with me for a short time, as I took some snaps of them with my digital camera and showed them the image, to which they all cheered.  Have to give credit to Jonbhai for this fine idea at breaking the ice with the little ones.  I wish there was a way of me sending them copies!  It was again, cute, but sad and difficult to avoid a spin on the guilt / entitlement cycle as I bid them goodbye and then comically banged my head off the metal gate while leaving, to their screaming delight.  No worries, joke’s on me, after all…

After returning via a flyover through a Muslim neighborhood (an INCREDIBLE jade-domed mosque loomed out of reasonable range of my camera…), I went to the Post Office to mail some books to myself at home, and later wished I had’t.  The parcel wallah was a nice enough dude, but he wrapped the books up perhaps a bit too securely, first with newsprint, then with muslin cloth, securing it with stiches.  Real old-school packaging job, but it looked like it took a real pride in his artisanship.  I sprung for airmail, which cost me Rs 282 and the parcel wallah charged my Rs 60, which I unsuccessfully and perhaps incorrectly tried to bargain down to Rs 45.  So for books that cost me nothing (they were a gift) I paid about $10 to evade the hassle of keeping them in my bag.  Again, live and learn :)  By the way, my guide from the taxi earlier did not charge me for his services, but he did ask for taxi fare back.  So, that ride cost me Rs 120 total.  Can a hear a great big “SUCKER!” from my CRY friends back home?

(I would like to put some links in the above text, but this computer is not cooperating - feel free to fire away with editing suggestions that do not involve use of a shift key which does not intermittently stick

…of the world,” is what I think the curly-topped 4-year-old daughter of Satyen, the gentleman who sat next to me on the 14-hour flight from Newark to Mumbai, was trying to say to me before she trailed off, distracted by any number of things going on in the plane, as any adorably rambunctious youngster would.  Just how special this place is was something I wouldn’t find out for a little while longer, though having been in Fort, Mumbai, now at the clean and friendly Hotel Manama for just under a day now, I can say that this city has far surpassed my initial expectations.  P.D. Mello Road is buzzing with activity at all hours of the day and night, rife with shrill horns of taxis and autorickshaws and lined on weither side with shops and stalls of literally every variety, banyan trees, and public works-in-progress.  Of that variety - where else in the world can one find a vegetarian restaurant and a coke-dealer (the coal by-product, not the toot; otherwise you could find that in Oakland :)  on the same block?  The sidewalk in front of the hotel was broken up to the point where it felt like walking a block was more of a nature hike than a stroll to get my phone activated at the vodaphone shop (wallah?) down the way.  As well as those ubiquitous autorickshaws with their snarling two-stroke engines, the trucks here left a big impression on me, painted with ornate designs and often a message to “BLOW HORN PLEASE” on the rear.  Traffic moves nearly bumper-to-bumper, as one uninterrupted stream - the ride back from the airport with my good friend Tejas’ dad (who aside from meeting me at the airport and aranging my taxi, brought a wonderful of gift homemade chhapati and achhar for a late evening snack and breakfast) was a (near-) crash course in urban Indian driving  A couple brief public notes to self: there’s no real special trick to crossing streets here except look, breathe a silent prayer, and run; and walk on the left side of the sidewalk, rather than the right.  Also, keep ‘maf kijiye’ near top of frequently used Hindi when it so happens invariably that you bump into people on the streets and ’suniye’ when asking for help in a shop.  My fractured Hindi, I think, has drawn more bemusement from the folks whom I’ve used it on than actual practical and susbstantive communication (they often just answer me in English), but on a few occasions we’ve been able to meet halfway.  Most everyone’s been helpful and friendly, which is really a great comfort.  Though I do not want to press my luck with the manager of the Internet store, who has tolerated my presence for about 90 minutes now - I think it’s  time to find some mosquito repellent from the chemist down the block and call some local friends.  India of course, Mumbai in particular, is world famous for its Hindi-langauge film industry; wikipedia will tell you all you need to know about Bollywood, but know that I have been more than a casual fan of this genre for several years (full disclosure: I do have the autographed Rani Mukherjee photo to prove this).  So, am hopeful that the plan for this evening or tomorrow is to catch a movie, preferably Om Shanti Om, the new Shahrukh Khan joint that has the news entertainment channels sputtering nonstop about his newly sculpted abs alone.  Until next entry, khuda hafiz!