Day 5, Mumbai, Gateway of India [Saturday 8th December 2007]
Previous day: Day 4, Mumbai [Friday 7th December 2007]
Next day: Day 6, Aurangabad [Sunday 9th December 2007]
Goodbye to the interminable honking horns of Mumbai! It's been a blast here, an eye opener and a fascinating introduction to India. I'm writing this from my seat on the train to Aurangabad, around 10pm, and the swaying of the train is making my handwriting a little shaky (it doesn't help that, being a web designer, I don't seem to have used a pen this extensively for the past few years! I've got wrist ache already!).
Although we could never come close to experiencing the city to the depths Suketu Mehta goes to in his excellent biography, Bombay: Maximum City, I think we managed to see some of the variety and contrasts that make the place what it is.
We got up early this morning and had sweet lassi (thick yoghurty drink) for breakfast, then went down to the Gateway of India to catch the ferry to Elephanta Island. The Gateway of India is a social hub, full of crowds of tourists, locals, ice cream and drinks sellers, photographers, all hanging out in the rubble strewn square surrounding the heaving bulk of the Gateway, constructed to celebrate the visit to Bombay of George V in 1911. There is a sign sticking out of a pile of bricks and sand here that says "Beautification project".
The boat to the island is mostly full of Indian tourists. When you arrive you can catch a little toy train the kilometre of so to the foot of the hill, which you then ascend, about 400 steps past dozens of stalls selling Hindu paraphernalia, t shirts ("Gandhi - they don't make them like him any more") and food. The whole place is heaving with people - boatloads more are arriving every half hour.
The crowds shatter any notion you may have about experiencing the serenity of an ancient temple. But even the constant shouting and kids running around can't ruin the magic of seeing an 8 metre high trimurti carved deep into solid rock - this is a statue of the three main deities of Hinduism, Brahma, Shiva and Vishnu. Shiva, his eyes closed, strikes a note of blissful calm amongst the hubbub.
Back on board the boat diesel fumes clog our lungs. We can't even see Mumbai through the humid haze. We chug back in the heat and wander through Mumbai until we find somewhere for lunch. The Apollo Restaurant is a Muslim run place and a meal of veg biryani, dal makhani, rotis and Pepsi turns out to be both great tasting and cheap - Rs. 115.
We walk to the Jehangir modern art gallery in Kala Ghoda. It has a display of Hindu spiritual sculptures, including a fantastically ornate carriage carved from wood, which is an important icon from the Bhagavad Gita wherein Krishna drives Arjun to the battlefield to teach him, parable style, about duty, karma and reincarnation. There's a great series of shadowy, frenzied and cluttered Mumbai painting, although I didn't note down the artist, sorry.
Following that we walk a route through a series of progressively tattier maidans - Oval Maidan, Cross Maidan and finally Azad Maidan, awash with litter, parched dry and dusty. All three are full of kids playing cricket with bats bigger than they are, the occasional full game with men in whites, and a few people kicking a football around. The dust is thick in the air, as are the cries of "Ball, ball, ball!" whenever one goes flying loose. Fielders and games overlap each other, and it all looks quite chaotic, but the whole thing functions on goodwill and mutual understanding.
Dinner is neer dosa (steamed lentil pancake), paneer chilly (sic) and pav bajia (one of endless spellings and symptomatic of Hinglish names and signs everywhere) at Shiv Sagar down the road from our hotel. We get some too sweet Bengali sweets for the train journey - they're all different colours and shapes but taste the same, like sickly sweet milk. We get our bags and head to Victoria Terminus. Our taxi driver talks to us a little in broken English, then tries to astronomically rip us off. His audacity shocks me, but in response to his request for Rs. 300 I hand him Rs. 50, the smallest note I have in my pocket. The money's not the issue, but he's a cheeky bastard and he knows it.
We're on the train now, after having been "shown" our train by a porter who didn't actually offer to port our bags anywhere, but did ask for some money anyway, and turned down the offer of a small note in hope of a bigger one. He sat down with us and tried to get a further payment for "checking our tickets were correct", at which point Kate stood up and told him to leave!
A guy from Hyderabad gets on and we have a nice chat about food, and he recommends some places for breakfast in Hyderabad and Secunderabad. He orders dinner from a porter and offers me some. I tell him I've eaten but he insists I take some packets of pineapple cake from him. He's going all the way home tonight, but we're getting off about halfway, in Aurangabad.
The 2AC carriage is pretty comfortable - you get a seat/bunk bed, an electric light, a bottle holder, blankets and sheets and a pillow. Some ladies come past and say hello. "Vellostha" I say to the guy as he lays down to sleep on the bunk opposite - it's the only bit of Telugu I know, which is the language local to Hyderabad and Andhra Pradesh. This makes him giggle. We pull the curtains across our section and go to sleep.
Next day: Day 6, Aurangabad [Sunday 9th December 2007]
Previous day: Day 4, Mumbai [Friday 7th December 2007]