7 stops in Bombay!

I arrived in India late on Saturday evening and it’s been a brilliant whirlwind ever since! India’s humidity was the first thing that hit me as I stepped off the plane – it is thick and dense and within 30 seconds, I was sweating. Welcome! After trying to sleep off some jetlag, I woke early Sunday morning feeling excited and ready to experience Bombay. Here’s a recap of my first 7 stops:

Stop 1: the bank. After navigating my way from my hotel through the honking traffic and immediately learning that walk/stop signs are utterly obsolete, I arrived at the bank withdrew some rupees and was ready to go! The security guard at the bank clearly could tell I was new to town and enthusiastically welcomed me to India. Nice, right?

Stop 2: Worli. I hopped in a taxi heading south from Juhu Beach to meet a dear friend and Bombay resident. Now, I grew up in Boston and lived in Europe for several months, so I thought I had a pretty firm understanding of aggressive driving. Wrong. Driving in India is intense. Traffic lanes are non-existent and cars remain literally inches from one another. Honking the horn is as common as hitting the gas pedal. I quickly learned not to pay attention to the road because it is far too stressful and the drivers have established some sort of system that works, so I just let it happen. Arriving in Worli, it was a pleasant feeling to be greeted by a familiar face in this unfamiliar setting.

Stop 3: lunch! My friend brought me to a restaurant called Thackers and ordered us thali. I didn’t quite know what to expect and it was delicious. Truly. A vegetarian’s dream meal! Waiters arrived at our table with large silver platters filled with small silver bowls. Next, servers came by and filled the small bowls with all sorts of vegetarian Indian treats: okra with tomato, potato curry, lentils… lots of lentils and sauces of all sorts. Yet another person came by with all types of bread for dipping. I ate and ate and it seemed as though the more I ate, the more they refilled the bowls. We finished off the meal with some rice and raiti, a yogurt drink and it was magnificent! I’ve had lots of Indian food at home, but this was different in the best possible way!

Thali lunch!

A man and his boat at Chowpatty Beach.

Eating pistachio ice cream!

Monsoons.

Haji Ali and walkway (on the left).

Haji Ali up close.

Stop 4: ice cream and the beach. What’s lunch without a little dessert, right? Down the road from the restaurant, we stopped at a street vendor selling kulfi, which is like a dense ice cream. We opted for the pistachio and it was the ultimate refreshment on a humid day. While we stood enjoying the kulfi, a brief rainstorm came through; it is monsoon season after all. I took a minute to soak up some rain – they say it’s good for the soul. Then, we walked over to Chowpatty Beach, home to a gorgeous view of the southern Bombay coastline. People were walking around and enjoying the Sunday rays.

Stop 5: shopping! Later this month, I’ll be attending a wedding near Bangalore, and I wanted to get a sari so I can participate in style. We went to a great shop in Breach Candy where I selected my pattern (green with gold beads) and got measurements to have a sari made up! I will pick it up sometime in the next few weeks and I am pumped. I asked several questions while getting the sari made (what color? how much? what fabric? how long? how snug? you get the picture…). The man assisting us could sense my anxiousness of picking out the “right” thing to wear. So, he said something to me that I will likely recall frequently over the next few weeks: “Miss, this is India – anything is possible!” Love it. I also wanted to pick up a few articles of Indian clothing to wear while I’m here. We stopped by Fabindia and Cotton World in the Phoenix Mills mall. These stores are amazing! Fabindia is a chain store in India that sells garments and home furnishings predominately handmade by rural Indians. In establishing the store, which has now become infamous in the country, the purchases help to sustain rural employment. Plus, the clothes are fabulous! What could be better? The other store, Cotton World is precisely as you’d imagine – comfortable clothes for all! I got two kurtas (longer shirts) and a pair of linen pants and I am set!

Stop 6: Haji Ali. To add some history to an otherwise frivolous day, we went down to the Haji Ali. The Haji Ali is a popular religious landmark in Bombay situated in the middle of the Arabian Sea. It houses the tomb of the Muslim Saint Pir Haji Ali Shah Bukhari and people from all religions visit to offer their prayers and ask for their wishes to be fulfilled by the Saint. To get there, you walk out on a long causeway, similar to a jetty of rocks. There is a palace-looking structure at the end of the causeway and it is stunning. In order to enter the shrine area, you must remove your shoes and wash your feet. Since it is Ramadan, it was quite crowded so I opted not to participate in the foot-washing, but observed from afar as people participated in this spiritual experience. It was powerful.

Stop 7: home. This was about all my jet-lagged self could handle for the day, so we packed it up, stopped at the fruit stand to stalk up on bananas and apricots for breakfast, and went back for a home-cooked meal. In the morning I learned how to make Indian chai and yogurt from milk. I definitely plan to pick up some chai to bring home!

To help me sum up my initial impressions, I want to first tell a brief story. While I was preparing to board the metro in Washington, DC, to go to the airport to fly here, there was a small boy standing with his grandfather on the platform. As the metro train approach, his eyes widened and he began jumping up and down, singing and pointing at the train, “It’s here! It’s here!” At the time, I politely smiled and remembered how much fun it was as a child to experience simple things like riding a train for the first time. After my first day in India, a part of me feels that young boy’s excitement. Everything is new and adventurous. It’s rare to have such opportunities as an adult and I fully expect the coming month to be filled with both inspiring and terrifying moments, but I’m as prepared as I can be. After all, this is India where anything is possible!

I finally got access to the blog today so below are the past three days of my thoughts.

First Impressions (7/28):

I arrived at the Mumbai airport around midnight on Saturday. I expected the airport to be relatively quiet considering it was so late. I was wrong. No one is allowed inside the airport doors without a ticket, which means that all family, friends and hotel rides wait not so patiently right outside the entrance. As I walked outside to look for my ride to the hotel I was suddenly met with air so thick that I had difficulty breathing and the realization that I really was not in Kansas anymore.

Things I observed on the 15 minute ride from the airport to the hotel:

1. Traffic laws do not exist in India.
2. At midnight, Mumbai looks like one huge construction zone, hardhats recommended.
3. Slumdog Millionaire did not lie to us, homeless children really do sleep under bridges and along the road. Just imagine any highway median in the US lined with children sleeping. This site was one of the most jarring things I have ever witnessed and I am sure it was only a preview of what I will see in the next two weeks.
4. India has a trash problem. Everywhere I looked there were mountains of trash.

The Next Day (Which I Think is Sunday):

I woke up at 6am local time to the sounds of drumming outside my window. In the darkness last night I did not realize that the hotel is right on the shoreline of Juhu Beach and the Arabian Sea. From my window I look straight onto one of the public entrances. Later in the morning, Jess and I found our way down to breakfast and hesitantly ate watermelon that may or may not make us sick later.

We next set out to find an ATM on the streets of Mumbai. The hotel front desk informed us that Citi Bank was a 5 minute walk away. I am sure that they were correct in their directions, we just had no clue where we were going and after 45 minutes gave up. However, our 45 minute walk was not without adventure. As mentioned before, traffic laws do not exist in India, so trying to cross the street is an intense game of running for your life before getting hit by any number of cars, buses or tuktuks (an Indian taxi). Jess and I were also faced with our first reality check of poverty. An Indian girl, maybe eight years old, followed us for five minutes begging for food or money. She even wrapped herself around Jess’s leg so she could not walk any further.

Homeless people in DC live better than this little girl.

7/30/12

Today I stepped over a dead man’s body on the sidewalk while walking back from the bank. Enough said.

Our program officially started tonight. We met as a group in the hotel lobby before heading to dinner at China Gate, an Indo-Chinese restaurant. I love Chinese food to begin with, but this food was amazing. It was the perfect mix of Chinese classics in Indian spices. My group had an amazing cab driver who spent the time telling us jokes and pointing out important places in the city. His son works for J.P. Morgan in Singapore, so this man no longer has to work (his son sends a lot of money home) but still chooses to work most days. I got the sense that some of this was his wife’s decision who does not like having him home all day.

We all decided to take tuktuks back to the hotel (it began pouring rain half way through the ride). At one point we were literally touching the back of a public bus we were so close. There is no point at which there is not traffic in India. What makes it worse is that there are no traffic lanes, traffic laws or stop signs, and everyone is horn-happy.

Day 3: A Chance To Change The World

Today is the day that the rest of the GW crew gets into Mumbai! After all the questions that I had yesterday and the reading I've been doing for this class (check out How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs & the Power of New Ideas), I am ready to roll up my sleeves and crack the code(s) to this case study in India!

After way too many options and too heavy of a breakfast, my classmates and I decided to get massages from the spa in our hotel. But first, we needed to get cash from an ATM. This will officially be my first trek in the city. So we all met in the lobby where we got directions to the nearest bank machine and we were off! I wore a blazer so that my arms would be covered as to both avoid the mosquitoes as well as the awkward stares at the American girl who wore spaghetti straps- while in theory a good plan but in practice turned out to be a terrible idea. The weather was way hotter than yesterday and the air was filled with fumes from the heavy traffic. It was crazy how people managed to get around. Imagine New York with no street signs, lights, or identified lanes during rush hour. So we all crossed our fingers that no one would get hit by a car along the way and did our best. It was so funny how no one would move or help clear a path for us to pass. Even the stray dogs that were sprawled out on the pavement, exhausted from the beating heat, had more entitlement to take up space than we did! The beeping from the horns of all the cars and taxis were a little nerve wrecking because it was so loud that you couldn't really tell the directions from which they came until you almost got hit!! At one point, I just knew that this mini van was going to take me out! There were so many different smells from spices like coriander and curry to trash and rotten food. There were mounds of trash in various places so there clearly was no coordinated, waste management system in the area. We stepped in a lot of puddles of water since its Monsoon season and the roads have a lot of cracks in them. There was a ton of people outside having breakfast and riding their bikes. At a round-about, we needed to cross the street to reach the bank. After waiting for a safe time to cross, we finally mustered the courage and ran for it! We get to the ATM and to my surprise, it was incredibly simple and took just a few minutes for all of us to grab cash- we all agreed that we should get 10,000 rupees which translates to about $200. On our way back, I felt a little more confident crossing the busy roads and cared less and less about what I was going to "step in" until we passed a "sleeping man" in a white sheet. Just for my own mental health sake, I'm going to say that he was just in a really deep sleep and oblivious to all the flies that were nesting near his face. After that journey and the denial about what I'm pretty sure I just saw, I needed a mini escape so that massage was a perfect transition. We all selected different packages so I got the deep tissue massage. After realizing what I was suppose to "wear" during the treatment, I knew that this was going to be a pretty interesting experience! Dr. Vyas said it best when describing the full on body treatments, "not even my breast exams are that invasive." It was so relaxing though that I felt like I was floating out of my body! The green tea finish was perfect. It was the most affordable pampering that I will probably ever experience and really helped me get into a place where I could translate all that was overwhelming and over-stimulating that day. My roommate and I kept convincing each other that we would stay awake for the rest of the day so that our sleeping patterns would adjust to India time but that clearly didn't happen! When our alarm clocks went off it was already time for us to meet our professors in the lobby for the orientation, get the logistics and run of the big show!

Drs. Vyas and Parrish took us to this really cool Indo-Chinese restaurant where we all ate until we were stuffed! The food was incredible and was so flavorful and well seasoned. I had the veggie dumpling wanton soup that tasted nothing like I expected but it was solid!! We ordered the rest of the food for the table and the servers there just piled on our plates everything from roasted garlic and ginger lamb to some type of caramelized spinach, veggie chowmein, chicken and veggie dumplings, fried Singapore rice, Szechwan, chop suey and too many other things that I couldn't figure out nor spell! It was just amazing.

Even though our class has meet for almost a month in DC in preparation for this case study of India, I felt like it was the very first time I connected with literally everyone! It was very emotional hearing about everyone's professional/academic and personal goals for this trip. It was just refreshing to experience everyone being so transparent and hopeful about doing some really good work in their respective areas of interest. All of us are developing individual business plans that will take what we learn about social entrepreneurship to the next level and it was just so reassuring to learn that EVERYONE was hoping to turn their plan into something that could be implemented for a community that they plan to serve or with whom they are already working. How amazing was it that from so many backgrounds, with myriad passions and paths, we all had the unique goal of improving how the public experiences health/a quality of life. At that moment, it all finally sunk in and I realized that I would be eternally grateful for this opportunity and that I was with a really unique group of folks committed to doing something bold and beneficial for the world. 

Day 2: Lovers & Friends at Juhu!

So after sleeping until about 3:30pm, I finally woke up and attempted to explore some of Mumbai. I couldn't resist the beautiful beach any longer so I grabbed my camera and walked literally just 2 minutes away from my room and was there! What I initially planned on doing for about 3 hours turned into an all day experience. I couldn’t stop taking pictures and watching all the lovers on Juhu beach. I was totally shocked when I saw so many couples embracing the beautiful day with public displays of affection because I expected the city to be super conservative. Someone even told me that juhu is the place to be when you're in love because no one judges you for it! I was immediately captivated by the amount of affectionate men that I saw there. There were countless men holding hands with each other, hugging and publicly smooching their wives/lady friends, and playing with their kids and family. It was so refreshing to see men in that role! It was nothing at all to see a group of guys all holding hands or linking their pinky fingers. It was in the middle of the day and everyone just seemed so happy to be on their Sunday holiday as they called it. 

At first I was really nervous about taking photos especially since there were several professional photographers carrying around equipment and a price menu. But eventually the people starting asking me to take their pictures- the photographers included! Even though few spoke English, most managed to ask me, “from where are you coming?” I definitely stood out like a sore thumb but luckily it wasn’t too awkward. Most of the little kids were playing and splashing me with the water as I walked on the shallow end.  I saw a pretty intense game of soccer where the boys played from all age groups (about 10 to 70 years old). Then I walked into a game of cricket. One of the elders in the bunch asked me if I wanted to play but I decided to stay in my lane as the spectator!

Out of nowhere this woman starts waving her henna art in front of me and she grabs my arm with a smile. She tells me that I should let her put ONE free henna stamp on my palm....next thing I know my entire arm is stamped and she tells me that it will cost me Rs500 (which is about $10 US dollars). I didn't mind since it was so beautiful and she was very charming. Eventually a swarm of people started to surround me so I asked her if I could pay her where it was less crowded. As we walked she started to tell me that her family would really appreciate the money and that she needed a lot of help. That her husband was bad and she had 3 babies. She even asked if she could show me where she lived I guess so I can see for myself what she was trying to describe. The social entrepreneurship wheels in my head starting churning and I wondered if she was apart of a group that was organized in doing henna for people. Unfortunately she didn't speak English well so I couldn't get an idea of how her henna making was a sustainable job for her and possibly her family. It seems like it would be a very convenient venture for women to coalesce around henna making especially since its embedded in the culture for wedding ceremonies and its an easy sell for tourists. I wondered about how profitable henna making was and who actually pocketed the proceeds. Who supplied the materials and where were they stored? Who did the designs? I wish I could have interviewed her to learn more about this but I definitely look forward to asking around tomorrow and possibly even some of the social entrepreneurs that we meet. How do you make something that is such a fixture in your culture a market that directly benefits the individuals involved? By the way she begged me to come back the next day and kept trying to share with me her story, it didn't seem like she was able to pocket much of the money she made from doing henna.

Juhu Beach was so beautiful that I spent my entire day in the water and the sand soaking up the sun! Today I was just so amazed that I was actually in India but tomorrow I will have to be more intentional about getting my questions answered!!

Day 1: I made it to India!

I cannot believe I am here but it is true- I finally made it. This is the most beautiful place that I have ever seen in my life! From the enveloping trees, the fresh smelling rain, to the lively people, Mumbai is heaven on earth. As soon as I got off of the plane, I was greeted by a lovely man from the Novotel (hotel from Juhu Beach). He was so pleasant and could obviously tell that I was a little overwhelmed from the busy scene in Mumbai's densely populated location. By the time we got through the crowd and to the car, I then knew it was all real. I asked the driver to turn on some music and we jammed all the way to the hotel to some move-your-hips in India kind of tunes! On the drive there I wondered, "does this city every sleep?" The steering wheel was on the right side of the car so I was a little nervous in the midnight, chaotic trek. There were dogs, taxis, motorpads, taxis, 3 wheelers, and pedestrians on the road but everyone had a mission and was moving and shaking pretty quickly. I felt so alive! The city was booming with sound and movement. The billboards were endless. It was like being in Times Square for the first time, but rural. Every stretch of land was covered with billboards, placards, and advertisements. You could tell from all of the signage that Mumbai's climate was very much so politically charged and that the people were super involved!

It was about 12:30am when we reached my hotel and it seemed like half the city was still out and about. When we pulled up, I was floored! The hotel was nicer than I could have ever imagined. We were expected to put our bags through a mini security clearance and then enter into the gates of pure luxury! The staff was extremely nice and the scenery was fabulous!!! At one point, I thought for sure I was in the wrong hotel. But once I learned that the restaurant was opened 24/7, I knew I was in the right spot! I grabbed a bite to eat where I met a new friend called Dave! Looking forward to exploring tomorrow...