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Published: April 8th 2007
hope
Dharavi I wasn't going to write a blog about Mumbai, let alone do anything here, but WOW, I have to write a short blog (well, knowing me, it'll get long). I was only here for 2 nights, but my eyes and ears have seen and heard so much!
The sleeper bus wasn't so bad...but from now on, I'm sticking with trains. The inconvenient thing about the busses is that you share your sleeper bed with someone else... so imagine sleeping on a smaller-than-twin sized bed with a stranger. Not fun.
Rodents and racists: same same, not different Our bus arrived into Mumbai early in the morning and I checked into a guesthouse in a part of town called Colaba, which is one of Mumbai's ritzy areas. The cheapest room I found was Rs400 ($10), and it was a cell-sized room with a communal bathroom. The funny thing about this place is that it's sort of like Holland's House-- a ghetto motel from back home where my friends and I drank underage when we were in high school. The local youngsters here rent rooms, and are partying the night away. The ultra-thin walls made it somewhat of
an inconvenience, but I'm not too old to remember what it's like to be in their shows! 😊
I must confess something. For my first day in Mumbai, I gave into my American urges and went to Mc Donalds. Ahhh.. felt so damn good to be there! Dal, masala, curry is all good, but after having it for breakfast, lunch and dinner day after day can quickly overload ones curry-limit. So I had the McMaharaja, which is like the Big Mac but with processed chicken and Indian spices (no beef in this cow-worshipping country!). I noticed a group of Korean guys and contemplated on saying, "Ahn-nyung ha sae yo (hello)," but just ate my burger like a loner...but a happy loner. I walked out, and one of the guys (Paul) came out and we started to chat. We ended up hanging out together, and we went to the Taj Palace Hotel and bummed off of its lush, air-conditioned lobby, and used their fancy, smancy bathroom. It’s been so long since I’ve seen anything this posh during my budget travels that I felt like an alien in there. The Taj Palace has an interesting story behind it. It was built
in 1903 by Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata, an Indian businessman who once got rejected from a European hotel because he was a "foreigner." After that unwarranted spectacle, he vowed to create a hotel that was better than any 5-star hotel, and ta-da (or should I say ta-ta!)... the Taj Palace was built.
We hung out by the Gateway of India, which is like India's Arch de Triumph. It's a massive social gathering place, and you see it all from the very rich to the very poor, strolling along the walkway snacking on local delights, or just sitting along the wall enclosing the Mumbai Harbor and people-watching-- one of the fav pastimes here in India. Cluttered along all this action are photographers, gigantic balloon sellers, souvenir sellers, shoe shiners and horse drawn carriages waiting to take people for a stroll around I don't know where.
That night I had plans to meet Geeta's younger sister, Priya, who is getting a master's degree at Bombay University. Paul and I met went to Leopold Cafe & Bar, a popular gathering spot, to meet Priya and her friend. They told us that the owner of the restaurant is a bit of a jerk;
we win!!
Dharavi slums apparently, he prefers foreign clients (which there are no shortage of dining here) and makes it apparent that he wants the Indian clients to eat fast and get the hell out.
After dinner, they took us to Marine Drive, which looks like Santa Monica Blvd, with the fancy apartments and restaurants along the beach (I even saw a Porsche... my first in India). It's really pretty there, and the whole stretch of the shore is called Queen's Necklace, as the street lights dotted along promenade look like a pearl necklace from afar.
On my way home, I stopped by the internet cafe downstairs and I asked the worker (owner's son) about Dharavi Slum, which is the largest slum in all of Asia. Priya had mentioned that there are tours there. Anyhow, I wanted to find out more about Dharavi, so I asked him about it. One talk led to another, and I found myself listening to this ignorant bigot say that America is the worst country because they invade other countries and do whatever they want and blahblahblah. Ok ok, fine, I can handle that; by this point in my travels, I'm a veteran of Anti-American conversations. Then
he proceeded to talk about how Britain is also f-ed up because they colonized India, squeezed out all of its resources, divided India by creating a separate Pakistan (even though it was
India who asked the British to do it in order to end the Hindu-Muslim conflict), and left India in a hopeless mess (I think the corrupt Indian government is doing that… I highly recommend that you read
The Age of Kali by William Dalrymple…a profound and shocking book on the frightening reality of the political corruption, caste wars and ethical deterioration happening in India). During this nonversation, I asked the idiot about what the government is doing to help the poverty level in India, and he said that there is nothing to do with them; the poor will just die, and that is the solution! What the f***?!?!?! Somewhere along the line, the nonversation switched back to Anti-Americanism when he kept saying, "Americans did this," “Americans did that,” "Americans invaded Iraq," etc, I told him, "Do I look like I invaded Iraq? You should stop generalizing people. How would you like it if I said, ‘Indians are lazy and deceitful’?" And he said something along the lines of,
with Priya, her friend, Paul at Marine Drive
can you see how tanned (burnt?) I got from Goa? Got a little sun happy, trying to even out my farmers tan from the motorbike ride. "Ok, I won't group you guys. But there is one group that is all bad." Me: "Who?" Him:"Blacks." WTF?!?! Then he to proceeded to say extremely offensive, inappropriate and hateful things about blacks and I could not tolerate his shit anymore! He said something about evil being in their blood and that that's why they have tribal wars against each other, and that's why the African continent is so poor (bad karma). I argued back with him, and we started just arguing in the internet cafe at 12 a.m. I finally realized that I was arguing with a wall. A dumb wall. It's crazy that there are such ignorant people like that. The whole thing left me fired up and furious for the following days because in a way, I felt like I let someone get away with murder, and in a way, I did.
I wish that's how my night ended. No, there is a bonus. After getting ready for bed, I was in my bed reading a book with my door open, when from the corner of my eye, I saw a mouse scurry into my room! $**@($@#%&$!!! After seeing the critter come in, I couldn't get
Mahesamurti, the dominating 18-foot tall, three-headed Shiva statue
Shiva is one of the most highly respected gods in Hinduism; the three faces represents Shiva as his three manifestations: the one facing front is Shiva the Preserver; the one facing left is Shiva the Destroyer; and the one facing right is Shiva the Creator myself to step off the bed. I devised a plan to flag someone down for help, but the chances were slim since it was 2 a.m. in the morning. Luckily, about 5 minutes later, a guy was on his way to the communal bathroom and I said, "Excuse me. There's a mouse under my bed. Can you get it out?" The seemingly tough guy turned out to be a wimp like me, as he said, "Hold on. I'll go get someone." He came back with the kid who works the front desk! The kid looked and said, "No mouse," to which I replied, "No. Yes mouse. Look again." After deep searching, we found the mouse and got him out of the room, but not without almost crushing him behind the nightstand. Yuck!
A blow to the senses: poverty at one of its worst The next morning, I met Paul at 11 a.m. for breakfast and told him about the grand 5-point plan I had devised the night before, which included seeing Elephanta Island, visiting the Ghandi museum, visiting Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (Victoria Terminus), going to the Dharavi slums, and ending our night by splurging at a
fancy restaurant. We started our day so late, but we both agreed we'd go for it. We rode an hour-long ferry to Elephanta Island, which has beautiful cave sculptures from the 1600s. Another UNESCO site, the cave temples are dedicated to all-things Shiva, and you have to walk up 125 steps to the caves, and in the scorching heat, it's torture, but after seeing the masterpiece, it was worth it. Time was against us when we got back to the Gateway of India (the ferry port), and we decided to skip the Ghandi museum, and headed for Victoria Terminus to admire it's stunning Victorian Gothic architecture. In plain, it's a massive train station that serves 2 million passengers yearly, but really, it's an architectural extravaganza with exquisite carvings and minute details in every point of the building. It's an overwhelming site to just absorb with your senses, and another reminder of the immeasurable capabilities of humans. WoW MoM.
We headed for the Dharavi slums and in the taxi ride over, my feelings of anticipation changed to fear. Fear of what I might see, fear of what I might feel, and fear of what might happen. Nothing can prepare you
count your blessings
daily job for the poorest of the poor; rumaging through rubbish for salavagable materials (Dharavi) for seeing something that notoriously has the title of Asia's largest slum. On the ride, the contradiction is shocking: middle class neighborhood with nice homes and cars, with people strolling the neighborhood with their family and friends... then a hundred meters later, the darkness casts down, and you see shacks built with raw, salvaged materials, unclean children wearing dirt-casted, hole-infested clothing, defecating in the streets, rummaging through trash mounds or begging for rupees. We didn't know where to stop or where to begin. The cab driver dropped us off at one random location and agreed to wait and take us back. Paul and I got out of the cab and I noticed a cricket game being played by the local kids in one side, and a hopeful child digging around rubbish for something that could be of monetary value to him and his family.
We walked into the residential area, and the children started coming like magnets. Wow, these children were soooo adorable and they looked at us with smiles and eyes that could melt your heart. Five minutes into our walk, we had a whole entourage of children following us. I would take photos and they would all
one of my fav pictures
the little girl on the bottom right is wearing eyeliner like many of the children in India. They say it wards of evil... (Dharavi) run to be in it. I tried to take photos of buildings and other people, but the children kept running in front of the camera so I mainly have pictures of kids from our time in Dharavi. I think Paul and I got lucky because the area we were in was a bit friendly, and I didn't sense any sinister vibes while we were there.
At the end of it, I bought a bag full of cookies and candies to give the children. When I took one bag of cookies out, some of the boys turned rowdy and they all grabbed for the cookies. I tried to take it back, but the boys succeeded in taking it hostage and running away, fighting each other for it. Sh*t. What did I just do... maybe this wasn't such a good idea. The next bag, I gave it to a girl who I hoped would distribute it fairly, and I gave the candies to a lady, who I also hoped would distribute it fairly to the kids. While we were heading back to the car, the children all followed us and I did the kiss-hand-blow thing, and all the girls started to
Cricket
Dharavi do it back saying "Bye Auntie." In that moment, I loved those children and hoped so much for their future. It reminded me how innocent and pure children are, and that hardly anything can really break them at that age. It’s so good to see that… the happiness and freedom that exists until society inevitably breaks it.
The children followed us to the cab, and gave us a huge farewell. I could see in their eyes that they didn't want us to leave, like in that short time they had grown such an affection and attachment to us, and it was really sad to leave.
The ride back to our nice, clean, safe abode in Colaba was silent and depressing, and we had an inevitable feeling of guilt of our privileged life (and embarrassingly, we did have a splurge over dinner at a fancy restaurant called Indigo...spending nearly Rs1000 each). It's such an awkward and guilt-ridden thing; seeing all this poverty and pain, but inside, I don’t really have such an open connection to this level of extreme poverty because that's not the everyday reality for me. I don't know what to make from all this. It's such
an overwhelming thing to absorb with the mind, the true extent of suffering that exists out there. And this is just one area of the world. I feel compelled to do something, but what? What can I do to help the millions living in this devastating reality? What can
we do? It’s something that hasn’t left my mind since.
I read a Time magazine article awhile back, called “The End of Poverty,” which was an excerpt of mega-economist, Jeffrey D. Sachs’ profound book on how to end poverty. He mentions the billion people who are so poor that their lives are at stake, and the 8 million people who succumb to death as a result of poverty. He mentions the fate of the untouchable caste in India (the lowest caste), who fulfill menial jobs like cleaning latrines and other jobs that you can’t dream of ever doing. (And it’s just so f***ed because according to the Hindu religion, the caste is something they are born into it based on karma and such, so it’s their fate and they just have to accept that that’s life…this arrangement is roses for the Brahmins and high castes but absolute sh*t for the
lowest caste members—few of whom switch to Buddhism to leave this seemingly or blatantly unjust arrangement).
Sachs reports that there are three degrees of poverty: extreme (or absolute) poverty, moderate poverty and relative poverty.
“Extreme poverty, defined by the World Bank as getting by on an income of less than $1 a day, means that households cannot meet basic needs for survival. They are chronically hungry, unable to get health care, lack safe drinking water and sanitation, cannot afford education for their children and perhaps lack rudimentary shelter—a roof to keep rain out of the hut—and basic articles of clothing, like shoes. We can describe extreme poverty as ‘poverty that kills.’ Unlike moderate or relative poverty, extreme poverty now exists only in developing countries. Moderate poverty, defined as living on $1 to $2 a day, refers to conditions in which basic needs are met, but just barely. Being in relative poverty, defined by a household income level below a given proportion of the national average, means lacking things that the middle class now takes for granted. The total number of people living in extreme poverty, the World Bank estimates, is 1.1 billion.” His plan to end extreme poverty
In the train leaving Mumbai
mother and child sleeping inbetween the carriages consists of nine steps, vaguely, they are: commit to the task; adopt a plan of action; raise the voice of the poor; redeem the U.S. role in the world; rescue the IMF And World Bank; strengthen the U.N.; harness global science; promorte sustainable development; and make a personal commitment. In the last step, he writes,
“It all comes back to us. Individuals, working in unison, form and shape societies... Great social forces are the mere accumulation of individual actions. Let the future say of our generation that we sent forth mighty currents of hope, and that we worked together to heal the world” .
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Rachel
non-member comment
This is Andrew typing for Rachel. She says she wants to see you and she thinks you are so great. When are you coming to Korea? And she is going crazy because she can't see you. (All your kids are watching me type this)