Incredible !ndia: Part Four

Mumbai, April 7 — I confess some trepidation about visiting Mumbai. Twenty+ million people. Legendary traffic on tires and hooves. Even more litter than I’d seen to date.

Judging by what I’d seen so far of India, this sounded like I’d be enduring searing hot, drippy excursions and sidestepping who knows what on the sidewalks. I was wrong. I can see why our guest lecturer Paulette Mitchell, cookbook and travel writer/photographer, keeps coming back to this city. First, our excellent guide, Jasmina, told us that Mumbai has two primary objectives that it hopes will inspire the rest of India:

• ‘Clean India.’ Signs painted on walls around the city: ‘Life is Better without Litter’

• More ‘toilets across India’

For starters, within one month, Mumbai plans to ban all thin-plastic bags. Jasmina didn’t seem too sure that this was possible. Several years ago the monsoons were especially bad and Mumbai flooded because plastic bags had clogged the city’s storm drains. Note the photo at the top: this woman is drinking Sprite from a plastic bottle, which is healthier and tastier than drinking tap water. But the bottle will end up in the gutter, or, with luck, in a recycle bin. [Though I’ve seen some litter floating alongside the ship in a few places we’ve visited, mostly very near shore, and often along the water line at beaches, I have not seen the massive islands of man-made waste we’ve all read about, floating in the middle of the ocean.] The Mumbai City Council sends street cleaners around the city daily. Here’s the view of Marine Drive from the overpass... Route 95 and Storrow Drive aren’t this clean...

And the beach area further along this route...

Evidently there is a movie called Toilet: A Love Story. Girl likes boy but refuses to marry him because his family has no toilet. He sets about trying to acquire one. It is a comedy with a social message. Since toilets require a lot of piping and this is an old, congested city, Jasmina said there are more cell phones than toilets.

First, a little history:

• 1574: Mumbai region ceded to Portugal. They came to convert the heathens. They stayed to get rich.

• 1661: Ceded to Britain, which leased the original islands to the British East India Co. Them again. The islands have since been connected into one peninsula with landfill.

• 1853: The first trains. Victoria Terminus (below; now renamed Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus) was modeled on St. Pancras in London. Today 7 million people a day ride 1,000 trains to and from work in the city. On a 12-coach train, 3 cars are for women only. More people die on trains than on the road.

• Mumbai is starting to build a subway. Maybe while it’s dug up, they can install lines for more toilets?

• 1858: The crown took over control from the British East India Co.

• 1896: Bubonic plague outbreak caused people with money to move to higher land — the Malabar district is now very desirable

• 1947: Independence, spearheaded by Mahatma Gandhi, ‘the father of the nation of India’

• 1997: Name changed from Bombay to Mumbai Some facts and figures about Mumbai:

• 50% Hindu

• 50% Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Jainist (Jainists control the diamond market; their priests never wear clothes), Zoroastrian and others

• Each religion has its own laws, e.g. Sharia law among Muslims. There’s a movement to establish uniform laws for all Indians

• It’s the wealthiest city in India

• 27-story private home of one of India’s wealthiest billionaires and his wife (their kids are away at university) has a staff of 600 — and is surrounded by what our guide calls ‘shantytowns’ (see later photo)

• An apartment in a high rise can run $2,000 month

• All the concrete and high-rise buildings + climate change are causing temperatures to rise. It has reached 41º C = 106 F. We walked around for about an hour in the late morning and it wasn’t that bad — maybe mid- to high 80s, but humid.

• The Victorian Gothic Revival architecture of the railway station, Mumbai University (below, Web photo), the High Court, and many other buildings was inspired by castles along the Rhine!

Off the bus for a walkaround. The Banganga Tank, a sacred, spring-fed reservoir tank, constructed in the 1100s, supposedly sprang from the waters of the sacred Ganges. It is a gathering spot for the faithful.

In the relatively quieter neighborhood near the Tank, the traffic was limited to two wheels, two feet, or four hooves. This woman sells you a few rupees’ worth of grass to feed the cow. For you, it counts as an offering, and she and the cow’s owner make a little money.

In the same neighborhood... the holes in the column used to be ‘street lights’ — small oil lamps were put in them at night.

Bike cum cart. There must have been eight or nine sacks of rice and it was obviously a very heavy load. As I walked down an alley later, I saw a sack here and a sack there. I imagine he had been making his deliveries...

This lady may be selling items for an offering and good luck charms. Or salad.

Jasmina surprised us with a walk through a laundry — a large neighborhood courtyard that was an open-air commercial hand-laundering operation. The hand-cranked washing machines...

The ‘dryers’... we literally walked through the hanging clothes.

No pins necessary...

Ready for delivery to the customer...

Ironically, the only litter I saw was an overflowed garbage can in the alley that lead to the laundry.

Close to the sacred waters at the Banganga Tank was this ‘shantytown’ (our guide’s word)... the corrugated metal is the roofs of the dwellings. Note the TV dishes...

Leaving a temple... dogs take advantage of quiet and comparatively cooler courtyards and temples (and even the basilica we had visited in Goa).

The cobbler’s shoe repair shop...

Back on the bus... one wonders why only one apartment was painted on the exterior.

In contrast to the apartment block above, we made a visit to a lovely two-story Portuguese-style bungalow in the Christian neighborhood, where we had chai tea and snacks with the owner.

An unusual way to preserve and display old family photos... crochet them together.

After our visit, we walked through the tiny lanes.

Call this one ‘Study in grays.’

Back on the bus... As in Spain and Italy, at least in olden days, Mumbai closes down for a few hours in the afternoon. It’s too damn hot to work. So, you stop work and snooze through the heat of the day, wherever you are.

While Mumbai is totally electrified, homes may have running water only two hours a day, so they collect it when they can get it. If their supply runs out, they have water delivered… we saw tank trucks all over the city. The man is standing on top of the tanker, pumping water through the green hose into the apartment’s awaiting receptacles.