They say that if you can survive Mumbai then
you can survive any city on earth. I
don’t know if I would make such a bold and dramatic a statement, but I
certainly see where they got the notion from.
The city is home to something like 23 million people (more than all of
Australia put together), more than five million people everyday ride the metro
rail (roughly 6.5 times the entire population of Columbus, OH), it also has the
largest slum in Asia (the world?) with over a million people crammed into ⅔ of
a square mile and all of that is packed into seven relatively small,
interconnected islands at the western corner of India.
I spent eight days in the city, but I have to
admit that I experienced very little of it as I was held up in my room for most
of the time doing nothing but being sick.
I arrived in Mumbai Tuesday morning (April 3rd) after a bus
ride from hell and left the hotel room for maybe three hours each day for food
and to avoid cabin fever until Monday.
These outings included a visit to the doctor, attending a Passover Seder
at the famous sky blue synagogue in Kala Ghoda and short walks around Colaba
and Church Gate. On Monday, Caroline, a
friend from pre-school arrived from Egypt and between that and starting to feel
much better, things started to pick up a bit.
Going back to Friday evening, I was planning
on going to Chabad for Passover… I didn’t make it out of bed. Saturday night I was determined, but when I
was getting ready to leave I realized that I didn’t have the address for the
Chabad house, and they don’t exactly advertise that anymore, especially in
Mumbai (knock knock. Who’s there? 2008). So I decided to Google search for the
address and see where it took me. Ten
minutes later I arrived at the old Chabad building that was in the process of
being gutted and started asking around to see if anyone could direct me to the
new Chabad house. Unsurprisingly no one
had any clue what I was talking about except for one man who just understood,
“Jew.” He didn’t know where the new
Chabad house was, but he did tell me where the sky blue synagogue was, so I
went. When I arrived I was greeted by a
small contingency of Mumbai’s finest and once I got inside I met an elderly man
who was curious how I ended up there. I
told him my story and he told me that I could either stay there and celebrate
with them or he could give me directions to Chabad, I chose the former. The Seder was held in the basement with six,
mostly filled, long tables hosting elderly couples, a few families and very
small handful of expats. The Seder took
four hours and most of the people left in what I can only assume to be mock
protest right after dinner, which took place at 11:30pm, and didn’t even wait
around for the end of the Seder.
Apparently the Friday night Seder only took about an hour, guess I
missed the boat on that one, oh well.
Caroline arrived in Mumbai at 5am on Monday
and we had a relaxing day until we went out to meet a Couch Surfing friend for
dinner at 9pm. I was introduced to Sid
through another Couch Surfer with the assertion that I didn’t party with Sid, I
just hadn’t seen Mumbai. Fast forward to
4am and I must agree with him. I was
pleasantly surprised with the turnout on a Monday night at an Irish bar for
Karaoke (Oh Brick Street, you were in my heart). I was also doubly impressed with Sid, who is
in his residency training to be a neurosurgeon and had a 24 hour shift in the
ICU starting at 9am on Tuesday. That
just bolsters your confidence in medical practitioners, doesn’t it?
The following day Caroline and I hired a cab
and went around the city to see a few sights before we left for Aurangabad that
night at 9pm. First we went to Gandhi’s
home which was turned into part shrine and part museum and then we went to what
may be the largest laundry machine in the world. By machine I mean a several acre area filled
with troughs and workers where almost all of the industrial laundry service for
the city is done. From five star hotels
to hospitals to transport services, all of them do their laundry here. Then we went to Dharavi, the largest slum in
Asia. I know it may be hard to believe,
but the people in Dharavi choose to live there and compared to several of the
other slums around Mumbai, it’s in pretty good shape. The reason people stay is because they don’t
have to pay any taxes and no politician will touch it because it’s turning into
a big voting issue. Almost everybody there
works and most estimates put the GDP of the slum at around half a billion
dollars mostly in export goods.
What a place‽
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