Day 3, Mumbai [Thursday 6th December 2007]
Previous day: Day 2, Mumbai [Wednesday 5th December 2007]
Next day: Day 4, Mumbai [Friday 7th December 2007]
We wake up late after a good night's sleep, at around 10am. We go to Mocha, a few doors down from our hotel. It's a coffee shop packed with students sucking on sheesha pipes, boys and girls chatting together. It's very laid back, with modern furniture and printed menus. I have a pretty good, strong coffee, but Kate doesn't like her chai which is excessively bitter.
We get a taxi to the Mahalaxshmi temple, which lies at the end of a an alley crowded with stalls selling devotional wares and offerings like flowers, fruits and coconuts. We leave our shoes with one of the ladies in the alley, who sit and stack them into piles waiting to be reclaimed. Inside the atmposhere is friendly, and the marble walls and floor are cooling. We buy a metal tray of prasad to offer to the deity inside the shrine - some flowers and a split coconut shell. We get into the scrum to hand them over to the priest. Kate is on one side with the women who are segregated from the men by an metal railing. There is not system, just bodies hunched and humid together. I reach through the crowd and had over my tray. The priest says something, takes most of the contents and hands me the remaining lump of coconut and a couple of petals. I got change?! I'm not sure what to do with it, but as we loiter the man we bought the stuff from comes over to rescue his tray. He puts the coconut in a bag and tells me to take it home.
We get a thali in a little upstairs cafe next to the busy road, and afterwards go to Mani Bhavan, Gandhi's residence when he was in Mumbai. It's a lovely old wooden house on a quiet, leafy road. I imagine it would have been even leafier and quieter years ago. Mumbai taxi drivers seem to beep for the hell of it. They drive at night with their lights off. They beep if they're in traffic, and beep if you try and cross the road.
We walk through Malabar Hill and the Hanging Gardens. Malabar Hill is built up with apartment blocks, but it's a bit desolate up there, even though it's supposed to be one of the city's better-off neighbourhoods, and we wonder if its time has passed.
In Colaba with stop for a snack. There seems to be an unofficial snack time around 5-6pm, to fill the time after work but before dinner. Our guy is only doing one snack - pav bhaji. It's a spicy vegetable slop which comes with bread rolls - the pav - brushed with ghee, and yoghurt on the side. It's very comforting to mop up the hot gravy with soft, buttery bread. We pass Leopolds, the famous backpacker haunt. Behind the main road down an unpromising alley is Bademiya, a well-known kebab stall. They're set up by the side of the road, with several men cooking and several more in the street taking orders. They even have a mobile number on a sign, if you want your kebab delivered, and opposite there's a kind of concrete bunker where you can eat in. We get a couple of chicken kebabs. Everything we've had so far has an amazingly gently, warming spiciness. Everything's red hot, but it's a slow build up and it's only once you've finished and stopped chewing that it really hits you. This seems to be the perfect time to get a paan from one of the paan wallahs who are everywhere. They're on every street, with a stall, or just a little desk, with its drawers full of the spices, dry fruits, pastes and powders with which they make their product. I want to get one but haven't worked up the courage yet.
I'm also amazed I haven't had the shits yet. I've been eating all sorts of street food - pav bhaji, vadapav, bhelpuri.
At 10pm we go to the PVR cinema near Nariman Point and watch the latest Bollywood blockbuster, which was released a couple of weeks back, Om Shanti Om. It stars Bollywood megastar Shahrukh Khan and newcomer Deepika Padukone. Jesus! Indian cinemas are loud! First we have to stand up through the national anthem. The film is pretty literal and uncomplicated, with plenty of song and dance routines, so it's easy to follow, even with no subtitles. We find ourselves laughing at all the same bits as the Indians, but probably miss out on a few in-jokes as the film is also an homage to the golden age of Bollywood cinema, with plenty of cameos from stars.
Next day: Day 4, Mumbai [Friday 7th December 2007]
Previous day: Day 2, Mumbai [Wednesday 5th December 2007]