Sylvia's Journal

From slum dwellers to the Mumbai elite in less than an hour. They may not be the crazy rich Asians but wealth was most visibly on display by wedding guests at my hotel. 

Whether rich or poor, it’s the wedding season. If it is anything like in Afghanistan (which I suspect it is), people will pull out all the stops, even when they have none to pull out. They will go into heavy debt to put on an impressive display, both in terms of clothing and food.

The people who celebrate their wedding at the Holiday Inn are, I presume, from the upper middle and lower upper classes. The women’s gowns are spectacular with lots of gold thread, silk in the most vibrant colors. The men are dressed in beautifully embroidered long shirts, long jackets and kaftans with headdresses that remind one of peacocks. If in Africa the women’s headdresses are most spectacular, especially in Nigeria; here it is the men that display their beauty (and wealth?) on their heads. I could just camp out in the lobby and watch the parade of beautiful people for hours.

But weddings are for everyone. Stages and festive lights strung between houses and trees can be seen (and heard) everywhere, including on streets, with drummers and dancers (stopping the already snarled traffic). From my fourth floor hotel room I can see a wedding celebration in full swing right now, just a few blocks away, with people parading onto the stage for picture taking, quite similar to the wedding rituals in Kabul. 

I was reminded of the most spectacular wedding I have ever participated in, which happened to also be in India and which I wrote about on my blog more than 8 years ago.

Tomorrow I will have to move out of this wonderful hotel as no standard rooms are available and I am not willing to pay the hefty cost of a deluxe room. I will move to a more affordable hotel in Navi (new) Mumbai where I will meet my Indian team mates for a meeting at one of their clients on Tuesday morning. But first my motor tour of the city tomorrow morning.

Where to start, with my Mumbai impressions? After a magnificent breakfast I sorted out phone arrangements and organized a taxi to the meeting place, which the taxi driver found after a few phone calls with the tour operator. “Where you see a bunch of foreigners in front of the station, that’s us.” Indeed. I was early and had a coffee and pakora at the Café Coffee Day where, indeed, some foreigners were also waiting for the tour to start: a young Swiss couple, just out of high school, on their way home from a 3 months tour of Asia, a Chinese and Basque yoga trainee (“we have to sit cross legged all day and focus on our breathing, this is our first day free!”). I detected little enthusiasm for the course, which is still to continue for a bit.  A second group emerged from the train, a Dutch couple and a man from northern India. The tour operator split us in two groups, the young people went off with one guide and I was in the ‘more mature’ group, which was nice as it included the Dutch.

Our guide, Sabina, hailed from the slum herself. She had finished her ‘guide training’ just 3 months ago. She had lots of data about the slum at her fingertips (size, occupancy, surface as well as health, legal, political and economic data). We saw the places where more than a billion dollars yearly gets made from recycling plastic, textile scraps, and soaps (yes, from the hotels!) and where breads are baked, leather processed and clay is turned into stoneware in various sizes. All the work is done in tiny holes in the wall, on roofs and in between houses when there is any ‘in between’ to spare.

We walked through the narrow (2 feet wide) alleyways known from the movie ‘Slumdog millionaire’ through which the kids run as they outwit the police. Being taller than the kids and not as good on my feet, it was a challenge to duck the live electrical wires above us and the open sewers below us, not always well covered. We learned about the legality of homes built before 1995, and then again, before 2017. Whatever is being built now is illegal. We wondered where one could possibly build more houses? Dharavi is full I’d say: 869,565 people per square mile (compare to about 26,000 in New York City), crammed into a space about two-thirds that of New York City’s Central Park.

The government has built high rises to get people out of the slum but people prefer to stay where they are. One high rise on the edge of the slum was built only 15 years ago. I guessed it was multiple of that. Public housing has a bad name just about everywhere I have seen it. Cheap materials are used for the apartments that cannot be sold on the open market. It makes one a cynic. On Thursday I am a guest lecturer at the MIT Peace University in Pune, which trains future politicians – Maybe I’ll ask the cynical question there.

After the easy-peasy in and out of South Africa, entering Mumbai from the air was more challenging. It seemed that all the jumbos of the world arrived at the same time. Thousands of travelers streamed in from all corners of the world into a gigantic hall. Advertisements along the long walk from the plane to the hall indicated that India plans to be one of the three most wanted tourist destinations in the next 5 years or so. If India is serious about this, it will have to up its game on immigration. 

Half the immigration booths were unoccupied. There was massive confusion about what kind of line was for what kind of visa (electronic or not). Some people waited in one line for an hour to be told to start anew in another line. I spotted a line for ‘babe in arms/seniors’ and quickly shifted to that line, which still had me waiting for an hour, but it was faster than the line for everyone else, which moved at a snail’s pace. Next time I will ask for a wheelchair. That was the shortest line.

A gentleman in front of me (also a senior), with an American passport but from here, explained to me in broken English that in India you are a senior when you turn 60. I was well into seniordom and in the right lane.

I had met a young man while waiting to board in Boston who was also on his way to Mumbai, his hometown, for a holiday with his family. Since we left Boston late I didn’t have much time to chat with him in Amsterdam, and then found him again waiting for his luggage. He gave me some pointers on ATMs and taxis and then we parted company.

Once out into the arrival hall everyone wanted my dollars. I picked a forex counter at random and asked for the rate. This was negotiable and depended on how many dollars I wanted to change which is understandable since they take a hefty commision. I had been advised to change a little as the rates and commissions are pretty bad. In spite of the exhortations to change at least 500 dollars and get a rate fairly close to the official exchange rate, I went for the lower amount.

Next challenge was a taxi. Here too was much competition among the taxi booking kiosks. Again, I picked one at random. My taxi was tiny and rickety and the driver spoke only rudimentary English but he got me and my luggage safely to the hotel at 2:30 AM.

Mombai in the middle of the night is busy. People are populating restaurants, doing road construction, and just hang out, as if sleep is optional, at least sleep when it is dark.

I am glad I booked at the Holiday Inn because the brand is consistent and dependable. It is part of the International Hotel Group of which I have a loyalty number. It hasn’t gotten me much in terms of free nights but in Nairobi it admitted me to the club level on the top floor of the Intercon and access to a lounge that was much like an airport lounge (free drinks, free food). Here in Mumbai, once my number was entered he pushed a little flag with the company logo across the counter. It read ‘thank you for being a loyal customer.’  He also said it. After the Nairobi experience this was a little disappointing. I didn’t even get to keep the little flag on its tiny wooden pedestal.

Since I have two days here I booked two tours on Trip Advisor. One is this afternoon, a ‘Dharavi tour and street art walk.’ Dharavi is the biggest slum in Mumbai I am told by my friends in Pune. For tomorrow I booked a motorcycle tour of the city which had good reviews and will ensure that I am not stuck in traffic all the time. A report is to follow tomorrow night.

Now I have to figure out how to get to the departure point for this afternoon’s tour, which has sentences like ‘to check if you are in the right spot, verify that V-Jai Restaurant and Bakery is opposite and Cafe Coffee Day is diagonally opposite.’  I have had such an experience once, some place in this part of the world, where I walked three times following written directions, each time returning to my hotel with a question mark, and finally being accompanied by someone from the hotel. I won’t have this luxury today. Fingers crossed.