Bombay Mix

There were two things we noticed when landing in Mumbai – the first was the heat and the second was the relative silence on the roads. The roads were busy, extremely busy as you would expect for a city with a population of 22 million, it’s just that there was virtually no honking of horns. It was weird!

Mumbai takes its name from the G-dess Mumba consort of Lord Shiva and it was the Portuguese that called it Bombay or “good little bay”. It is built on 7 islands and has nowhere to expand other than into the sea and there has already been significant land reclamation and it continues apace. The whole of marine drive is on reclaimed land and there is building of a new coastal route going on next to it rising up out of the sea.

Marine drive reminds us of the Tayelet (boardwalk) of Tel Aviv and early morning there were joggers and people doing various exercises and the evenings were filled with people just walking up and down. This is the first city that we have actually managed to walk out of our hotel without being pestered, and it was lovely to be able to explore the vicinity in the evenings on foot rather than just get in an Uber to a restaurant. It is lined with trees which are a mixture of banyan and “Sea Putat” trees. The Sea Putat has beautiful flowers and fruit but apparently every bit of the tree is poisonous! Many of the trees still have fairy lights wound round them. All are numbered as they are protected and all are painted in orange and white near their base, and with the green foliage it looks like homage to the Indian flag. The orange is actually a chemical that prevents infestation and the white is merely to reflect the light in the dark. Still accidental colouring or not, I think it looks great when you see long lines of them. It mirrors the orange, white and green lights that you see wound round the lamp posts. There is a beach in the centre of Marine Drive in the centre of the town and it looks very inviting. However it’s only for walking on. The sea is so polluted that no-one swims in it. If you want to swim then you join one of the many beach clubs along the front. But make sure you join the right one as each one is for a different community, many based on religion.

We only really had one day of sightseeing and so we had to try and make the most of it. The guide had asked the driver what we look like so she knew who to approach in the lobby of the hotel. Apparently he described Steven as like one of the Australian cricket players! The one without the World Cup in his luggage obviously.

Everywhere we went there are security scanning booths to walk through, particularly at the Gateway of India as the terrorists arrived by sea in 2011, and at the railway station where they tried to flee from. The thing is security gates are only useful if someone is there to monitor them! The British influence is all around and there were times when we felt as if we were walking around London. There are electric red double decker buses, although they are just for local use apparently. The University and its convocation hall is classic old British red brick university in style, and even includes a clock tower. Victoria station could have been an old Kings Cross, although I haven’t seen monkeys, even in stone on columns at Kings Cross. However things have an Indian twist. The trains don’t have doors and people are jumping off before the train has stopped as they rush to get their onward bus or taxi. The carriages are segregated into those for men and those for women, allegedly for the women’s comfort. Both have first and second class the only difference, despite the price differential of 500%, is a cushion to sit on and there is no guarantee of a seat. When a train arrives the platforms literally disappear under a swarm of bodies, that then disappear as the train pulls out and are replaced within minutes by the next swarm from the next train. Interestingly there is no attempt to check tickets before people exit the building. I think it’s called the law of masses – it would be impossible. Instead they have inspectors doing spot checks. The fine for not having a 10 rupee ticket (10p) is 5000 rupees. Many of the old British buildings are being renovated but instead of metal scaffolding there is bamboo. It’s cheap, flexible, strong and doesn’t get scalding hot in the Mumbai sun so workers don’t burn their hands and feet.

One of the highlights was Malabar Hill which is one of the city’s most exclusive neighbourhoods and contains an eclectic mix of sites of interest. There are three public parks – one for children, one for senior citizens and one for everyone – The Hanging Gardens. The park is huge but no picnics or food are allowed in the park due to the amount of rubbish left by the users. They are built over 3 reservoirs that hold 30 million gallons of water for the Mumbai residents. There are significant Jain and Parsi communities that live in this neighbourhood although the Parsi community is shrinking. There is a Parsi burial ground in this vicinity. The Parsi’s death rituals believe in giving their bodies back to nature. This means that the first stage is to leave the body out to be eaten by vultures. This usually takes 24 hours for all the flesh to be consumed and then the remains are put into a pit where weathering leads to decomposition. There is a raised structure built around it called “the tower of silence”. Unfortunately modern civilisation has stopped this practice. Not by rules and regulations but by our way of life in the last 20-30 years. It became apparent that the vulture population was decreasing and so the bodies were not being consumed as quickly. It was not pollution that was killing the vultures but diclofenac use in cattle that was causing organ failure in the vultures. They have had to resort to electrical cremation now. The Jain community also has a sizeable presence and there is a large temple on Malabar Hill. They are an offshoot of Hinduism. They were described to us as “radical Hindus”. Radical in their way of respecting all living things, no matter how small even if microscopic. Some do not eat root vegetables so that they do not destroy even micro-organisms in digging them up.

No visit to India would be complete without a visit to a Ghandi Museum. Ghandi was gifted a house in Mumbai, Mani Bhavan, and whilst he spent more time travelling or in Delhi in his later years, he stayed here when in Mumbai. It has now been turned into a very tasteful museum. He chose to live in only one room and that room on the top floor has been preserved. His walking stick, spinning wheels along with the books he read the most are in his room. The museum is decorated with some of his teachings and the ground floor is a library which contains books he’s read, his teachings and books about him. For someone as ignorant as me the most illuminating part of the museum were the ~ 25 installations that told Ghandi’s life, some of which I’ve shamelessly copied.

Mumbai boasts the oldest open air laundry, Mahalaskshi Dhoby Ghaut, at ~140 years old. It’s also the largest, washing as far as the eye can see. There are no pegs, just two ropes twisted together that hold the washing. It’s hard enough sorting washing for a household of 5 but somehow their system is extremely efficient. They collect washing from all over the city. put a code on the inside of the garment and as the same person is responsible for the same area of the city over the years they get to recognise your laundry. The dark green is the hospital so that’s easy! All the workers are men and their systems and techniques for cleaning/scrubbing the clothes are handed down through the family, although some more modern techniques such as washing machines have started to pop up.

There is a Jewish influence in Mumbai. The Sassoon family came to India from Baghdad and has its name on a Library and reading room, boat dock, school and hospital. We visited the Kenesfth Eliyahoo Synagogue which is still a working synagogue and they get between 25-30 people Friday night and Shabbat morning. We were supposed to go to Chabad, but never got there as we ran out of time.

Another striking difference we noted was the absence of beggars and people living in the street. We aren’t naive we know they are still there, but in different parts of the city, whereas in other cities they’ve been virtually everywhere. We were impressed with a project that has been running for the last 20-30 years called “door step schools” that started with schools on wheels just going to homes/street homes where children weren’t at school and building relationships by playing, drawing and story telling on a daily basis before moving onto lessons first in hygiene before moving on to reading and writing.

In the afternoon we visited Dharavi, which is considered to be one of the largest slums in the world, and was used as the backdrop for Slumdog millionaire. It is in the top five of the most densely populated areas on the planet. It started on a mangrove swamp and was therefore colonised by Koli fisherman and later when the swamp was drained tanners and potters moved in. Now there is still a significant leather and pottery presence, along with substantial recycling and textile businesses. Many of these businesses are small family businesses passed on from generation to generation but some are run as co-operatives and many export around the world. There is electricity supplied on the grid to each house, and water is available also via a grid system. There is a proper sewage system. However 40% of houses are only 10 sqm and only 9% are large enough to actually have a toilet inside. 90% of homes use common toilet and washing blocks or the remains of the river which is therefore an open sewer. The homes themselves are spotless, many beautifully decorated on the outside. There are both government and private schools and 40% of children stay on at school beyond 10th grade i.e after the age of 16. We met some primary school children who’s English was definitely better than our children’s french at that age. We were shown round by a university student in his last year of his physics degree. He applied for a job at a big Indian petrochemical firm and just missed out by 2 points so his plan is to do a masters and then re-apply. He will ultimately be successful and be able to provide a better life for his mother, sister and family. He comes from Dharavi and like many his family migrated here from another part of India. He has no father so there is no family business for him to go into so he wanted to make a name for himself a different way. He assured me there was no child labour in Dharavi and that the government performs regular inspections, and we had a long discussion about exploitation and working and living conditions as I remain convinced that somewhere there are significant numbers of people that are making a lot of money out of the people that live and work in Dharavi. He agreed as such, but said that the workers are happy they are earning so that they can provide for their family. He was clear that may not be the case if they were somewhere else. Dharavi is a community that has everything for them including their own answer to Walmart – D-mart! His plea was not to see it as a slum, but as a collection of extremely hard workers who take a pride in their work and want to give their families a better life.

As we set the alarm for 03:00 to catch our flight to Kochi we reflected on our brief but very enjoyable and thought provoking time in Mumbai. It is the country’s financial and commercial centre and the main port on the Arabian Sea. It is cosmopolitan, modern and wealthy and is seen as the Dream city, the land of opportunity. It has evidence of its colonial and its Indian past and all of this is mixed with the new. Expensive glass tower blocks next to decrepit ramshackle buildings, thriving old practices that support modern day living and the concern that the hard work and gratitude of the vulnerable is being exploited. However there is a tiny chink of hope that education may just be starting to be effective as part of the answer. The rest is political will and cash.