Bollywood Calls & Slumming it
Trip Start
Sep 29, 2007
1
173
221
Trip End
Ongoing
Mumbai (Bombay),
Maharashtra,
India
Monday, December 22, 2008
Once in Mumbai we hit some horrendous traffic peak hour situation and sat in the smoggy bus for two hours all the way across town. Due to the recent terrorist attacks here, we were greeted with neon signs saying "Be Alert, Stay Aware, Watch Activity of Strangers and Together We Will banish Terror". We walked to Central train Station where we ran into some heavily armed and fully kitted out police and hit the train just in time to get the full effect of the crush of peak hour commuters. After negotiating with a taxi driver to take us to the Colaba area he doubled his price and locked his doors on us
street portrait
. Because i suffer from the fear of entrapment i was not happy and started beating on the doors in a frantic scene when he refused to let us out. Eventually he came down to the original price but was still a sly dog.Mumbai was an interesting city not so much for tourist sight-seeing type travel but for the rich melting pot of humanity. You really have to get amongst it to experience Mumbai life.
As soon as we hit the first budget hotel a scout guy named Ajmed who we met on the stairs thrust a business card into our hands that said he was from "Bollystars" a casting model agency looking for westerners to be extras in and add some international falir to their Bollywood productions. Mumbai is the home of India's kitsch, Hindi-language film industry and 900 movies are made here in the city every year. All the Indians are mad for it. We've seen a couple of movies but not the big budget ones. The plots are all basically similar. There's alot of singing and dancing good guys who battle evil guys in neverending quests for true love. The same stars seem to be in every movie. We were keen to get a look in behind the scenes of production and the guy promised us 'London style nightclub costumes' but it was to be a full day filming and we wanted to see a bit of the city before heading south to Goa so we passed up the opportunity. We later regretted this decision but it was too late by then and all the roles were filled. You snooze, you lose.
Next morning we woke to find we were staying right next door to the Taj Mahal Hotel where the terror attacks happened
security outside the Taj Hotel
. We were up and about early and hit the streets in search of a chai. I saw a guy with dried ferret looking animals stuck to his bicycle wheel spokes ride past me, a lovely start to the day. For the chai we chose a very busy place on the Colaba Causeway and then once seated we realised, we were sitting in the famous 'Leopold's Cafe', another place hit by the terrorists. There was a notice asking for donations for staff members killed in the attacks and people were taking photographs of bullet holes in the walls. Whilst sitting there we just couldn't imagine gunmen walking in and shooting up the place. We've started calling it terrorist tourism. The Taj Mahal Hotel was due to open it's doors today but security was still tight and the surrounding roads blocked off. We could see fire damage from Strand Road and lots of media and news channel cars lined the streets. We ventured down to the Gateway Of India which is a bold basalt archway built on Mumbai Harbour where there were even more news reporters. I bought a packet of the giant balloons from the guys in the street only to find the ones they sold me are not the same size as the ones they walk around with. Damn it, fleeced by the giant balloon vendor, smaller than the model scam. I thought it would be fun to give them to kids and run around hitting each other with them.
Our first day in Bombay was spent hitting up the National Gallery Of Modern Art which was showcasing international and modern artists work
wanna be a Bollystar?
. We also put our heads in at the Jahangir Art Gallery where they are currently exhibiting local artists work as a benefit for terrorism victims, some interesting work. Outside the gallery there were some hopeful artists showing and selling their work on the pavement, i bought some paintings on leaves and Nadine got Bec's name on a piece of rice for a joke. We walked along Mahatma Gandhi Road checking out the gothic buildings and just soaking in the city. I had a fairly decent shopping session at the Fabindia store which had some good quality Indian cotton and silks from all over India. This resulted in me buying a divine raw silk scarf, silk kurta, cotton top and kurta and two pairs of stripey fatty clown pants for dancing, nice one and all purchased for bargain prices by our standards. we went to the Flora Fountain and then found Gandhi's khadi cotton emporium but it was closed. I bought some Auroville incense (supposedly the best in the world). We drank iced coffee from yard sized glasses bought from a new Indian coffee franchise store. Verdict, they should stick with the chai making. Mumbai is a good place to buy antiques but most are good replicas. I got into negotiations with an albino Indian wearing a cowboy shirt over a brass pirate's telescope but he wanted too much for it sio i gave him my best pirate joke and walked away. We tried to go to the Regal cinema for a high budget Bollywood film but all the tickets were sold out and there was a swollen mass of people waiting to go in
the famous Bombay bhel puri dish
. It would have been good to experience a movie amongst a full-house. Pan was big business here as were ladies gaudy shoe stores. As usual the beggars came out in full force after dark and we gave in and bought milk for babies on one occasion. There were many hungry kids around and lots of stray dogs too. I read an article that said there are 73182 stray dogs in Mumbai and that they were going to start culling them because they are biting people. How would anybody know how many dogs are in Mumbai? How would you count them? Come on.The definite culinary highlight was the famous Bombay bhelpuri street snack. The dish gives your tastebuds an exploding combination of sweet, sour, hot, soft and crucnchy sensatiions all at the same time and this is a result of puffed rice balls filled with potato, onions, peanuts, crunchy noodles, sweet tamarind, gren coriander, chilli and lime. Absolutely flavoursome fabulous!
We would have liked to have seen some more of the real Mumbai like the Chor Bazaar (Thieves market) area or the Chowpatty Beach area but we decided to get the best shot of reality in the city and booked onto a Dharavi Reality Tour that would take us into the heart of Mumbai's slums. Half of the population of Mumbai live in these slum or shantytown suburbs. Spread over an area of 175 hectares and sandwiched between two major railway lines, Dharavi has a population of 1 million people and is where all the small scale industries are. The annual turnover from these recycling, pottery, embroidery, bakery, soap making, leather tanning and poppadom making industries is approximately US$665 million, some of the wares are exported.
An interesting day was had
Mahatma Gandhi road
. We saw a boys shelter home under a railway bridge where very young boys were going for sleeping and medicine. It's illegal for children under 14 to be working but many do. We drove passed the Mumbai red light district where young girls were waiting for business outside their tiny coloured, homes, most were sold by their rural families to the brothel owners who deal in illegal traffiking of children. There are 60 000 prostitutes in Mumbai and HIV is rampant due to poor education. A sad sight to see early in the morning. We also went to see the dhobi washing (laundry) area of the city where 5000 people were hard at work washing the Mumbai resident's clothing in a giant open air laundry then they sort and deliver it. We also saw some of the pavement villas which are basically squats on the side of the road with no electricity or running water so conditions are poor there. Land means big dollars in Mumbai so these folk may be moved on at some point in the near future. Next we visited the slum city within a city. Dharavi has severe problems with public health, due to the scarcity of toilet facilities, compounded by the flooding during the monsoon season. There's only one toilet per 1,440 residents in Dharavi. Mahim Creek, a local river, is widely used by local residents for urination and defecation, leading to the spread of contagious disease. The area also suffers from problems with inadequate water supply. We visited many little factories where working conditions were horrendous, barbaric and medievil
roundabout installation Flora Fountain
. The workers were working in rooms with poor ventilation and had no safety protection despite working with dangerous tools, fire and chemicals. The residential parts were dirty and stinky and very claustrophobic, there were bare wires and open sewers. We also went to the school. You did get a feel of the community spirit that is there, people seemed to be happy there and it was a similar situation as that of Garbage City in Cairo. What happens to Dharavi in the future is uncertain. An urban redevelopment plan is proposed for the Dharavi area. The plan involves the construction of 30 million square feet of housing, schools, parks and roads to serve the existing 57,000 families residing in the area, along with 40 million square feet of residential and commercial space for sale.There has been significant local opposition to the plans, largely because existing residents are due to receive only 225 square feet of land each. Furthermore, only those families who lived in the area before the year 2000 are slated for resettlement. Concerns have also been raised by residents who fear that some of their small businesses in the 'informal' sector may not be relocated under the redevelopment plan. The government has said that it will only legalize and relocate industries that are not "polluting."
I was very happy with the responsible way the tour was conducted by the company who adhered to ethically sound principles by keeping the group number down to five and putting 80% of the money we paid to NGO's helping in the community.
Note- the photos from this section were provided by the tour company Reality Tours and Travel because photography is of course, not allowed on the tour.
Later i did some business with a scarf exporter and we waited at the private bus stand drinking chai and watching the world go by until it was time to head by sleeper bus for Goa in preparation for the Xmas and New Years silly season.
We are living on egg biryani, a kind of curried rice with eggs in the bottom of it, simple yet filling and tasty.
