MUMBAI: CONTRASTS

 FACTS ABOUT MUMBAI 

* Mumbai has a population of nearly 13 million, Making it the most populated city in India, and the 4th most in the world.  

* Mumbai is Indian's richest city.

* Over half the population live below the poverty line and in slums.

* Only 6% of the land in Mumbai is covered by Slums.

* 1.2 million people earn less than 20 rupees a day (that's less than 20p).

* Two of the top ten richest man in the world live in Mumbai.

* Mumbai has over 20 billionaires.

* Mumbai has the worlds most expensive house; Antilla, which has 3 helipads, is 27 storeys high and has a full time staff of 600. It is owned by Mukesh Ambani, Indian's richest man with a net worth of 21 billion.

* Mumbai has 6 million commuters everyday.  It commutes 2.2 billion people a year.  At rush hours 500 people will cram into a carriage meant for the maxium of 188 people.  This is called "Super Dense Crush Load." 3000 people die every year on Mumbai's train system.

* Mumbai has the worlds largest slum; Dharavi which has over a million people.

Mumbai is a city of contrasts.  Its a place where luxury hotels, houses and restaurants over look and reside along side some of the poorest people in the world.  It is a city where mankind is at its worst, but then at its best.  A lot of people hate Mumbai and I can totally understand why, its an unforgiving place; it takes no prisoners and will swallow you up whole, if you let it. It is a city falling in on itself, but I love Mumbai.  Why?  Because for me its the place that sums up the India of today the best. Mumbai in places is the 21st century living along side the past.  A place of adventure, where not one spot of land is unused or useless.  Its a place of life.  Its alive!

I was last in Mumbai 5 years ago.  I read so much about the place before I went, to be an informed person and to prepare myself, but nothing prepares you for Mumbai.  As soon as we left the airport it was like some one smacking you in the face with a big hit of reality.  The poverty was everywhere and on a scale beyond anything I had seen.  The traffic was immense, and insane and everywhere there was people, noise, animals. Even though I was dying of a throat infection, I couldn't shut my eyes.  I just couldn't stop looking.  It was like some weird addiction.  Five years later Mumbai still has the same effect, though this time I was visiting a city, that in some ways was very different from the one I had last seen.  In 2008 Mumbai was subject to terrorist attacks that became know as the Mumbai bombings, which killed 164 people.  I remember them well.  I was India at the time travelling around on my own, but I was miles away up in the north.  I still got pleading phone calls and emails to get on the first plane home.  I stayed all the same, but I remember watching news clips on dodgy guest house TVs, showing images of blood stained walls of places I had frequented.  It didn't send a shiver down my spine, because it didn't feel real to me. TV breeds a sense of detachment, even the news.  

It was now though all these years later, being back in the reality of the place it seemed more real than when it actually happened, for me.  The city still has the scars. This is most clearly seen in Colaba.  Colaba is home to the Gate way of India and The Taj Palace, some of the most iconic landmarks of Mumbai, hence targets for the bombings.  Where once, you could roam freely around, now you are met with a barrage of security fences and checks.  They even check your bags.  Now that's a first in India.  Well when I say check its a bit like one of those checks from a drunk night club bouncer, but its still a check all the same. Sort of?  It seemed weird in a city that before, had no rules or restrictions.  It was free, in a strange sort of way. That had been Mumbai's charm.  In the everyday struggle for life that most people face there, it had made it a city where there were no holes barred, where anything goes.  The realisation of this came when I returned to my old favourite: Leopold's.  Leopold's is a restaurant, bar along Colaba Causeway that has become a bit of an institution in Mumbai.  It has always been a tourist hangout due to the fact its one of the few places you are sure to get a cold beer no matter what time of the day. It has also become a cult favourite among a younger generation, with the popularity of the book Shantaram.  I had sat in Leopold's reading that very book, on my first trip, feeling part of the story in the very place that it was set.  We had sat up stairs in the dark windowless bar surrounded by the seedier types of the Mumbai under world that the book told of.  I found it all very exciting.  It was different now.  Your bags had to be checked before you went in.  Once inside the place was just as busy as ever but the clientele had changed.  There were no people that could pass for criminal types anymore.  Just tourists and rich out of town types.  Leopold's had been gentrified. 

Even if you wanted to, it is impossible to escape the fact that Mumbai is a city full of poverty.  Its ever where.  Poverty makes the privileged feel uncomfortable. They don't know how to handle it or how they should react. Most of the time they put their heads in the sand and pretend that it is not happening.  I myself have done this on many occasions. In fact to survive travelling in India you have to become hardened to poverty or you will not last two seconds, but on this time in Mumbai, I did not want to hide from the poverty; I wanted to go straight into the heart of it.
Dharavi is one of, if not the biggest slum in the world, with around a population of a million.  The population density is around 2,000 people per acre. As of 2006 there was only one toilet per 1,440 residents. 90% of all housing and commericial buildings in the slum are illegal.  It is to put it bluntly, one of the poorest places on earth and me and Lauren decided to go on a tour and visit it.  "What!" I bet your thinking, "Why the Hell would you want to do that?"  Well! because I don't want to stick my head in the sand anymore.  To understand things in life you have to confront them head on.  The tour was run by a charity group in which all profits go back into running a kindergarten and community centre in the slum. No photography was allowed, which seemed annoying at first, for our media generation, but was the best thing ever, it made you look with your own eyes.  Besides this was not some tourist circus, this was people's real lives.  We walk around, the place is filthy and over crowded.  We go to the factories.  The working conditions are terrible and dangerous.  I see lots of men with damaged eyes or hands.  I ask Ravi our guide about them.
"They all can have safety gloves and glasses but they chose not to, as they says it slows down their work and so they will get paid less" he says calmly.  I'm speechless that they would rather lose their sight or hands than slow themselves down for money. We move on.  Everywhere there is rubbish.  Everyone just throws their rubbish into the street so it was one huge waste ground.
"Do they not want to keep their environment clean I ask?'
Ravi looks and pauses for a moment. "You see that land over there" he says.  We look to the land in front of us that is filled as far as the eye can see with rubbish.  "The government had it all cleared and cleaned up to stop diseases, but then there was all this land suddenly that all the houses on each side thought belonged to them.  There was so much fighting and arguing, so to put an end to the matter, they just filled it up with rubbish again" he says matter of a fact.  I think he can see the shock on my face, because he turns to me and says" Stopping poverty is not just about giving money, its also about changing the way people think."
Our tour comes to an end.  Its not what I thought it would be.  Yes there was poverty and things that were shocking and not pleasant, but it was not all gloom and despair.  Everywhere we went there were smiling faces.  These people have nothing, but they are more happy than most of us in the west surrounded by everything we could desire.  They have a sense of community that was lost a long time ago from Britain.  Future plans for Dhavari include knocking the slum down to rehouse people in high rise flats.  I'm not sure whether this is the solution, its not that easy, nor is finding the end to poverty.  I wish I had the answers, but I don't, though maybe I understand it a little better now.

There cannot be a bigger contrast than going from one of the poorest places on earth to one of the poshest hotels on earth, but the next day that's exactly what we did.  I had weeks before for Laurens birthday present booked us in for a night at the Oberoi hotel in Mumbai. You can if you  book early enough, get a world class hotel in India for the same as the price of a room at the Holiday Inn in Britain.  Now all these weeks later I felt a sudden pang of guilt as we entered the lobby of this plush 5 star hotel, after the previous days events.  We also looked comically out of place with our scruffy hippie clothes and back packs. The woman goes to show us to our room, I don't think she has ever quite had a reaction like ours on seeing a room.  Its amazing! There is electric blinds; A TV in the bathroom; Bathrobes, a walk in wardrobe.  Me and Lauren start running round the room screaming like kids do when they open their presents at Christmas.  I guess the hotel lady didn't really get this kind of reaction from business men or rich families, as she's looking at us like we are insane.  We are straight down to the pool, where we order Cosmo's for beside the pool.  Then we order some more Cosmo's and before you know it I'm feeling quite light headed. Its while I'm having my tipsy moment that , I start thinking how is easy it would be to forget about yesterday, being in this place.  Its like a different world, and all so easily cut off from everything else, but I won't forget.  It just makes me appreciate everything I have in this life more.

The next day it's time for Lauren to leave.  I feel a sudden tinge of sadness, and get a little teary eyed.  I'm going to miss her.  We have spent the last 6 weeks 24/7 in each others company, through the ups and the downs and now she's gone.  I don't know what to do.  I feel like my right arm has been taken away as I stand there alone at the hotel entrance watching the car drive into the distance.  It can be hard travelling with people.  Travels can break the best of friendships.  You see every side to someone, but with Lauren there were no sides.  What you see is what you get.  I can truly say she is a lovely and kind person through and through.  I wish I could be more like here. 

I had decided to stay in Mumbai a couple more days and hang out with my friend Shanna who was in town for a week with work.   She had even said I could stay with her in her nice hotel.  It all seemed perfect.  Well not so perfect as Shanna had seemed to of vanished off the face of the planet, as I had heard nothing from her and she had not replied to my emails.  "How Strange" I thought.  I was also now left with the problem of nowhere to stay.  I ventured back to the simple but clean hotel me and Lauren had stayed in when we first arrived in the city.

"I'm sorry Madam, the hotel is full" says the camp receptionist as I get to the desk, "But our sister hotel on the next street has space."

The name Hotel Windsor sounded a lot grander than it was.  The hotel, set in an old colonial building was reached by a dingy stairwell, that lend to an even dingier corridor where the office was found.  The man behind reception had little in the way of people skills and spat onto the floor, after the end of most sentences. The cheapest room was a dormitory, which he shows me to.  It's a big dirty room with 5 beds and an old TV.  There is a balcony that over looks the street which is covered in bird shit. Not the best room in the world but its cheap and I do have it to myself.

"I'll take it!"

As I fill in the paper work at reception I see a labrador dog walking around, wearing a nappy. 

"Hi! Is that just me or is there a dog walking around wearing a nappy?' I ask reception guy.

"Yes Madam! It is owners dog."

"Why is it wearing a nappy?"

"It is her blood time. Stop bad dogs going near her."

Its not just the nappy that stops the "Bad dogs" going near her, as I learn one night, as I find reception guy whacking a host of dogs out of the hotel with a metal chain.  I stand there open mouthed, while he just looks at me and says, "You see Madam! Bad dogs!"

The clientele of the place isn't much better either, as most seem to be out of town seedy business men, who have a good perv at me every time I leave my room, but my favourite resident is the mad Kiwi guy who sits at the top of the stairs crying most of the time! The service has a lot to be desired as well.  I ask for an omelet for breakfast, it is slammed down on my table by the moody waiter, with a big dollop of butter beside it.

"Hi!  I'm sorry but I didn't ask for butter.  I don't like it" I say to moody waiter.  With that he walks over to my plate and scoops the butter up with his hand and throws on top of the mountain of butter that sits on the breakfast table.  I feel sick!  I look down at my pathetic omelet. I think I have lost my appetite! I decide to go and use the WI-FI which you can only get connection on if you stand by reception.  Yesterday I was slipping cocktails by a pool, in 5 star luxury.  I look around now. The mad Kiwi is crying at the top of the stairs again; Nappy dog is running around; Reception guy is spitting on the floor, I'm starving and I have a bird shit balcony as the best feature of my room. "Oh! How the mighty have fallen!" I think.

While we had been in Dhavari, we had met an English girl there called Emily, who was working on a project in the slum for her masters degree.  As I was staying in Mumbai for some extra days, she suggested we meet up. We meet up a couple of days later in the suburb of Bandra where she was living.  I like Bandra instantly due to the fact you ask the taxi driver to put the taxi on the meter and he does with out any questions; a first I believe in India.  Emily was a tall thin blonde, with English Rose looks.  She was also extremely intelligent and I was glad of her company, though I think she was just as glad of mine.  I don't think it had been easy for a woman like Emily living in India.  She told me about the old Hindu couple that she was living with.

"There like my parents.  They always want to know where I have been, and who with.  They wait up for me, I'm not even allowed my own key.  They treat me like a child" she says.  

"My worse nightmare" I reply.

"You know you worse thing is?" she continues "I don't even have any privacy in my room as it also has their shrine in it, so I have to vacate the room early and in the evenings too, so that they can pray."  

"Now that does sound like a real nightmare! No lay in's!" I respond.

 We walk to a park that over looks the sea.  Its actually a peaceful haven in all the chaos of Mumbai.  Emily tells me, she comes here all the time while the family pray, and to get out of the house.  We find a bench.  I'm aware of the constant stares, especially as we are both two tall blonde's we stand out like sore thumbs.  

"How do you cope living here as a woman.  It must be hard?  All the stares!  I have never got use to all the stares" I tell her.

"It is difficult.  Being a woman here is difficult in general.  Its hard for us western women, because we come from such a different way of life.  We have so much freedom, but things we take for granted our not the same here.  Take for example your hair."

I look at my hair 

"What?" I reply.

"You wear it down."

"And?" I ask

"Over here wearing your hair lose is seen as sexually suggestive.  Its all these little things, that we don't think twice about."

"But I don't like my ears, I have to wear my hair down"I say.

"I'm sorry, but that means your a lose woman" she laughs.

"Oh well! I can live with that!" and we both start laughing.

She talks to me about life in Dhavari.  Its interesting, funny, hard and scary.  I ask her what is the worse thing that has happened for her since her time in Dhavari.

"One of the young girls who I help and is one of my students.  She is very ill.  I think she is dying.  I spoke to her parents about her and what they were doing for her.  They simply replied nothing! Why? Because she is a girl and they must save all their money for their son and his future.  She will probably die. There is nothing I can do. This is the way of life here" she says with sadness.

Its my final night in Mumbai.  I'm sat in the dingy reception at Hotel Windsor trying to get WI-FI when I get an email.  Its Shanna!  She tells me she is sorry for not being in contact; she has had a nightmare with work, but would love to catch up tonight and I can go and stay at her hotel. Well I don't need to be asked twice.  I'm straight in my room and packing my bag.  I'm nearly finished when the door opens and some hot young guy walks in with a back pack.  

"Oh hi! I'm your new room mate" he says in an Aussie accent.  

"You have to be joking me! I mean you have to be joking me!" I think "I've been here for 2 whole nights with only the birds that shit all over the balcony and a dog in a nappy for company, and now I'm leaving, some hot Aussie guys walks in!  OMG! he's probably going to walk around in his underwear!!!

This is all going on in my head, but what comes out of my mouth is "I'm actually leaving now!"

"That's a shame" he says "We could of gone for some beers together."

Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

After I drag myself away from the hot Aussie and recover from the trauma in the taxi, I find myself in Shanna's hotel.  I find her already at the bar with a glass of wine.  I got to know Shanna from Hackney Wick and from when we sold our souls top the Devil and worked at London Oktober Fest as tarted up Frauleins! She is a peite, pretty, Californian blonde with a sexy voice.

She greets me.

"Well I don't know about you, but I need to get drunk, because this week has been one Hell of a week! Wine?" she asks.

The next thing I know there is a bottle at our table.

Shanna goes on to tell me about her week from Hell!  She was over in Mumbai to do a food festival with her restaurant from London.  The day they got here, it got cancelled.  Her restaurant have lost thousands of pounds so she has been doing her best to try and salvage what she can, by doing pop up nights, in other hotels.  Its been stressful for her and now all she wants to do is let her down for a bit.  You can hardly blame her.  I don't know what my excuse is? We order another bottle of wine and I do believe another?  Things become a little blurry after that.  I'm not sure how but we are at the front of the hotel, and seem to have befriended most of the hotel staff.  They ask about London, and then I start singing to them my favourite Bollywood song, which they find hilarious! Shanna is talking to a Sikh guy who works at the hotel, who has an electric mosquito killer.  You know the ones that look like a tennis racket!  The next thing I know he's in Shanna's room swinging around with the racket trying to kill not existent mosquito's.  In return for his valour Shanna gives him a gift of a recipe book from her restaurant which she has boxes of in her room. 

"That's a whole £30, that book" she says drunkenly pointing at the price tag.  We then literally have to force Sikh guy out of the room as I don't think he wants to leave. After that I remember trying to drink some wine and then I passed out! I wake up the next day still dressed in a complete daze.  

"Shit!" I think, "I've got a flight to catch!"

Next stop: Return to Goa!