Mumbai

Mumbai served as our introduction to India. We spent our time there split between finding the basic tourist attractions on our own and tasting some distinctly local flavors with our host family. It was a perfect combination. With the Dalals we tasted home-cooked chipatis, were introduced to spring garlic and ghee, enjoyed our first sidewalk pani puri and chaas, attended a one-year old's birthday feast, and learned the difference between a caste and a community. We got a first hand glimpse of Muslims in majority-Hindu India and the beneficiaries of $10/day personal chefs, chauffeurs and maids. And, perhaps best of all, we attended Laughing Club - a sort of aerobics class that meets at six a.m. every morning in a neighborhood park. We practiced laughing for 45 minutes before we celebrated one of the member's birthdays with samosas and other treats. This was our dinner table at the birthday party. We ate a traditional Thal meal: nine alternating savory and sweet courses, served family style, and eaten with the right hand:

Once we headed out on our own we ran headlong into reminders of the November attacks. We rode the open-air, commuter rails where gunmen began their shooting spree, walked past the packed tables at Cafe Leopold, and tiptoed our way through the recently reopened Taj hotel (pictured here with one of Mumbai's famous guilded carriages in the foreground). Apparently in the wake of the attacks Mumbai is much subdued: there were muted New Years celebrations and the city is largely devoid of western tourists. In addition, there was a national gas strike while we were in town, significantly reducing the notorious traffic jams. Not that we could tell.

Mumbai's 40,000 black taxis were curbside because cab drivers could not afford to fill their tanks before the shortages. Throughout our time here, when we have hired a taxi or tuc-tuc for a relatively long trip (more than 5 km) they stop at a gas station to buy enough fuel for the trip. The Dalals, having fueled up the night before, were unaffected by the strike.

Besides the traffic (and pollution) the next most obvious impression upon arriving in India concern its religious fervor. In order to attend the Dalals' community functions I needed to don a chador. Commuter trains (and the their ticket lines) are segregated.

Every neighborhood has temples, mosques, churches, and altars. In Baganga Tank we saw the spot Hindus believe marks the center of the world. In Malabar Hill we visited our first Jain Temple, an ornately carved stone building full of paintings and statues explaining how to avoid "contamination." Jainists, we learned, believe in the sanctity of all forms of life. The most devout don't wear clothes or marry. Most menus in Mumbai offer Jain-friendly dishes, which excludes not only all animal products but root vegetables as well (for fear their harvest harms insects). Inside we were permitted to take photographs provided we did not "turn our backs to the deities" in doing so.







Other thoroughly Indian sights in our first few days included casual cricket matches in Maidan Oval,

Corners shared by free-roaming cows, fruit sellers, and taxis,

Tranquil parks scenes with families seeking respite from the humidity and chaos of the city outside,

And ... Bollywood! Mumbai is the working set for 900 movies every year. And we saw this winter's mega-blockbuster, Ghajini.

Ghajini tells the story of a corporate mogul, who wears a button-down muscle tee under his suit vest and necktie to the office and breaks into Backstreet Boys style song and dance routines until his girlfriend dies and he loses his short term memory. At that point the film takes its cues from Momento. We followed all of this thanks to the "Hinglish" dialogue.

I don't know how it ends because after nearly three hours of brutal killings, memory-inducing tattoos, and technicolor musical numbers we finally made it to intermission and we opted for dinner instead of act two. That's not to say I wasn't a fan though. I'd go back for the second half or another Bollywood film in a heartbeat.

xoxo Jessie