Mumbai Bye

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After about a week in Mumbai we are on our way up north. Many of the westerners (along with Melanie and Vikram) are headed on a tour to see Agra, Jaipur, and Udaipur for the next 10 or so days. We’re at the airport, waiting for our flight into New Dehli. We’ll then hop on a bus for Agra, the home of the Taj Mahal. Yes, that Taj Mahal.

PORTUGAL

First of all, my sincere apologies go out to Portugal. I was told by a friend that Portugal is highly underrated and a great place to visit. Portugal invented the cork for wine bottles and is known for Port wine (wonder what marketing genius came up with that name). Portuguese food also comes from Portugal by the way. So because of these interesting facts about Portugal, I think you should make your plans today to travel to Portugal. I’ve even come up with some slogans that the massive Travel Bureau of Portugal should use:

COME TO PORTUGAL, WE CAN GET YOU DRUNK

or

COME TO PORTUGAL, WE PROBABLY COLONIZED YOUR COUNTRY AT SOME POINT IN OUR HISTORY, WHY NOT RETURN THE FAVOR

When did this go from an India travel blog to a Portugal bashing one? Back to India and again sincere apologies to Portugal. Viva’ Portugal

RED DOT IS MORE THAN A MARKET THAT DELIVERS FOOD

I think the question that I wanted answered most going to India (besides what makes Portugal tick) is what in the heck does the red dot on Indian women signify. The mark is a "tika" (which, when circular is also known as a "bindi") and is meant to signify that a woman is married. The traditional tika were made of vermilion paste, ash, or sandalwood, whereas now they are usually created with more conventional liquids or powders (or even stickers!). Apparently, the symbolism of the bindi is no longer strictly followed and they are largely used as "beauty accoutrements." So there you have it. Many of the western women wore “bindi’s” for the wedding so it isn’t strictly just an Indian thing. Also something I’ve seen is that many married women have henna dye on the parts in their hair. Henna dye is big here with the men as well. Instead of Grecian formula, the men use Henna to color their hair and they make Ron Howard (Happy Days Ron Howard) look like a brunette.

CRICKET IS MORE THAN JUST A JUMPING INSECT

I can’t tell you how huge Cricket is here. But I’ll try. It’s huge. Riding in the streets, on every open field, you see countless numbers of men and boys playing this game. I wish I could tell you more about it, but it’s a very difficult game to understand. It is what our baseball is based on. Cricket is by far the number one sport here and involves a lot of media attention and national pride since their main rival is Pakistan, which as you probably know, is not on best terms with India (remember the nukes testing thing a few years back). They are actually going to be playing Pakistan in Cricket soon, but not until after we’re gone. Bummer. Apparently, India has the second best team in the world, right behind the Australians. Go India!

INDIAN TELEVISION IS MORE….NO, IT’S INDIAN TELEVISION

Better than Cambodian Karaoke is Indian television. I mentioned before how Bollywood is big here and churns out more television and films than the Hollywood, but I failed to mention what kind of programming they have. Since India doesn’t have the money that Hollywood has, the budgets for the programs are smaller. Much smaller. And since they produce even more shows, the budgets are even that much smaller and the productions show it. But according to my friend Vinay (more about him later), he said that when he came to Mumbai in 1995, they had nine channels. Now they have 45 channels and more are still coming which tells you about the boom that is Bollywood. In fact, a feature length film shot today will be in theaters by May. Crazy.

They can’t show nudity in Indian films (which is weird when you consider who created the Kama Sutra (no it wasn’t Portugal)) so there is a lot of suggestive talk and movement, but no down and dirty action. They try to compensate by dousing the women in water at least once in every film to make her clothes skin tight, but when you’re from a morally bankrupt culture like the U.S., it doesn’t do the trick. Give me some skin! Like U.S. television, nudity is bad, but violence is good so many of their movies have violence to try and compensate. If American films are shown, they’ll cut the nudity but save the profanity. Unfortunately, they don’t cut Ben Affleck.

Some of the TV shows could use a little more budget. For example, some shows involve a child singing to the camera. I don’t understand the Hindi to get the show, but apparently when you have 45 channels and small budgets, one or two shows have to involve a child singing. I would much prefer Harsh’s dancing to this kid singing, so maybe that will be on Channel 46. My favorite show on television here involves the Indian gods. It shows people dressed up looking like the various gods. Kali is my favorite because she has all those arms and the actress in the costume looks extremely uncomfortable in this completely fake looking costume. CGI couldn’t come here fast enough. In some of the programs, English is intermingled with Hindi. So an actor would be speaking Hindi, have an English scene, and then go back to Hindi. Much like that kids show in the 70’s Villa Alegre (I’m dating myself) where they’d be speaking English and then go into a little Spanish. Obviously, Hindi is the language of preference, but enough people know English to make it acceptable.

Vinay Pathak was the guy who I went to school with in NY. He was in shock when I called him after getting the number from Tanu and all he could say was, “Eric Bram”. He is apparently a successful actor here who is in a SNL type show here. I was only able to have tea with Vinay while I was here but hopefully, when I get back (I’m in Mumbai for a day on the way home) I’ll be able to spend a little more time with him.

Off to New Dehli….

E

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