Left the hotel at 8am for a walking tour of the area around the Taj Hotel (called Coloba), the oldest part of Mumbai. About a block from the hotel we saw the oldest hotel in the city that had, in its day, once been incredibly majestic. Every important person coming to Bombay stayed there. Today it is in ruins, barely standing, full of squatters with their laundry hanging from windows.
This same area is the heart of Mumbai’s financial district, the equivalent of our Wall Street. Tall modern banking building tower behind 19th century English designed buildings such as the Victoria Terminus, a train station that hundreds of thousands of people (maybe more) commute through every day. We had a marvelous guide for our morning tour (a walking encyclopedia) and she told us about her own experiences commuting back and forth from her suburban town to downtown Mumbai. She travels 1-½ hours each way on a train so crowded that she often has to stand on one foot for the entire ride. She said because it’s so hot inside the train, and so packed with people, people will do almost anything to get to the seats next to windows. We walked out onto the platform and peeked into one of the commuter train cars. It was horrible looking, like a an old Long Island Railroad car that’s been left to rot for 100 years and then set on fire. There was one car designated for women only so they can avoid “inappropriate touching”.
When we entered the train station our guide told us that no photography was allowed. We saw serious police presence, machine guns, bunkers, metal detectors (which, ok, no one seemed to use). Cliff wanted me to take a photo of him and Cathy striking a Slumdog Millionaire pose on the platform but I told him there was no way I was going to an Indian prison for his blog.
On a nearby street we saw a huge richly decorated banyan tree. Beneath it sat a woman with a cow. People and cars were stopping to pray at the shrine at the base of the tree and were feeding the cow. It seemed unusual so we asked our guide about it. As we all know, cows are venerated in India. She explained that the woman owns the cow. She also grows the food that people are purchasing to feed to her cow. Pretty good gig this woman has going! But wait, there’s more. The woman sells the urine from the cow which people want because it’s believed to have certain medicinal properties (and no, they don’t drink it). She also sells the dung from the cow which is dried and burned and villagers use ash made from cow dung as an ingredient in a powder used to “brush their teeth”. I’ve heard about the golden goose but I think hers is surely a golden cow.
As we dodged “construction” on the sidewalks – men in dhotis with pick axes – we marveled at modern Indian men and women in business suits hurrying by. This seemed so incongruous in the context of what we’d just seen.
By noon at the conclusion of our walk we were soaked, tired and thirsty. Although it was a short distance back to the Taj, we opted for a taxi. We headed to the café for a lime soda, the most marvelous drink ever. I’m told they’re just lime juice, sugar syrup and soda water, but they’re better than any margarita or cocktail I’ve ever had.
After a very brief rest we headed back out, this time to take in museums and galleries we’d seen during our walking tour. First stop was a contemporary gallery showing very emerging Indian artists. Then to a wonderful museum containing ancient Indian sculptures and artifacts on the ground floor, arrange around a lovely domed atrium. On the second floor we saw a special exhibit about Krishna. Gorgeous music played in the background and I was determined to see if I could get the CD. I asked the security guard what it was and he referred me to the small bookshop downstairs. The bookshop had no idea and told me to go to a CD store around the corner and ask them…
But first we stopped next door to see a contemporary show called Informal Cities, about people who live at the margins of society and the terrible condition in which they live (ex under a bridge, in a favella, in shantytowns). Wonderful show with strong international artists represented.
Now we return to my hunt for music and Cliff’s ongoing hunt for Bollywood DVDs. It turns out he’d been referred to the same store, Rhythm House, so off we went. The store turned out to be quite good although they had no idea what music was playing in the Krishna exhibition. I bought a few CDs and hoped for the best.
By the time we returned to the Taj, Ferris and I were about to collapse. Cliff and Cathy had planned to meet Kashmera and Krushna for dinner. We all needed to pack our bags to prepare for a 4am wake-up call the next morning to get to the airport in time for a 7am flight to Aurangabad. Ferris and I decided to stay close to home for dinner and enjoyed Japanese food for a change on the top floor of the Taj Tower. We had a beautiful view over the city and the Arabian Sea. And sure enough, at the stroke at 10pm we got a call from the bell desk that our khadi clothes had just been delivered! Just under the wire.
