Omg! I need a title!

---

Just after I uploaded the last blog, I met Raj and his Gf. He is a dude selling maps to tourists, travel agencies etc here, she is a Parisian who is living in the south of France and well yeah. They're gna marry. It is the second time she's been over here, but they talk on the phone every day. It is quite weird to look at them, but also quite nice.. gives you hope in humanity, y'know? So it's not all about the money, people can still break social boundaries. She is a chique girl from Paris, he is a hawker in Mumbai. Life's good. So Sunday afternoon I went to Soda, as it was a dry day, I had to hide in the upstairs room so no one would see me drinking my beer while reading Jules Vernes' '20,000 leagues under the sea'. I have to confess... it is the first time I'm reading this book, but well enjoying it. I also haven't read 'In 80 days around the world' but soon will. I have to read more classics, or better: I should read more classics, and I want to. So anyways, I met Raj and her in the evening at Juhu beach - as it was a dry day (no alcohol because of a religious holiday or a memorial day) I had coffee. She seems pretty nice, I would say she is at the end of her 20s, pretty and self confident.. Raj is 22, looks like an Indian-Italian (slick shirts, long hair, etc). As I had work on Monday I didn't stay too long, but Raj invited me to his house the following night... to have dinner. His house. A real Indian home. A map sellers' home. I was well excited.
I know how the life on the streets here looks like. But he showed me the city how it looks behind the streets! There is this whole other city, narrow streets, loads of people, shrines, people dancing, people cooking, people laughing, people crying, cats, dogs, crows.. it is a labyrinth and without Raj, I would have gotten lost in the matter of seconds. The houses are not only on the ground floor, but there are also loads of ladders going to houses above the ground, like bunkhouses. Raj and his family lived on the 'top bunk', when Raj, his girlfriend and I entered, about 5 kids and 2 youths were sitting on the bed and watching TV. Raj told them to stand up and to give us the seats.. so there we were, 3 people taking up the same space as 7 before. I felt great. Really. There was a thin curtain to the next room, and once I had gone up the ladder and into the house I saw a woman sitting on the floor, completely hidden under scarfs and a sari, I didn't see much at all. Just before we left she peeked through the curtain and I nodded friendly, but there was no reply.. to be honest: It was a bit creepy, but I guess different behaviour for different people in different countries. Quite amazing actually that I was thinking about that in that moment, there was so much to see - many new things and new scents even new sounds, very exciting.
As Raj's mother is a vegetarian (actually - the whole family except Raj is), she wont allow any meat cooked or eaten in her house, and Raj wanted to eat some chicken, so we went to his Aunts place. Actually it was a room. It was cleared completely for us, we had it all to ourselves. His aunt especially prepared the chicken and chapatthis for us, it tasted amazing (and wasn't too spicy! I was a bit scared before I tried it because I didn't want to not eat it, be disrespectful). When we entered there were 2 beers waiting for Raj and me (his gf doesn't drink), so we had a drink and were just shitchatting (sh rox), but I couldn't really focus on the conversation as there seemed to be so much happening around us, outside. There was a little dance and music going on at the shrine (which was like.. 5metres away from us, outside). After we chilled in the room for a couple of hours, Raj told his gf to leave us for a bit so we could chill and talk before he would bring me back outside, onto the streets. Then, I noticed that there were a couple of people sitting outside, in front of the room... I asked him who they were and he told me that it was his aunt, uncle and their kids. How amazingly nice is this? They were waiting outside, so we could chill in their house. So I asked Raj to invite them in, so I could meet them and thank them! At the beginning it was only 2 sons, the uncle and aunt. I thanked them and we had a good laugh, when I asked them how many children they have, they answered 3 sons, 3 daughters and sent one of the boys out to get the rest of them. They were all really nice, they didn't speak English and I didn't speak marathi or Hindi so Raj had to translate everything..! It was really friendly and his uncle and I swapped a beedi for a cigarette and both enjoyed the change. He would just ash on the floor, but I didn't.. I ashed outside and then some ash fell on my trousers and started burning a hole. So the uncle quickly got up flicked the ash from my trousers and gave me a steel cup to ash in, it was usually used for food.. so I felt bad. It really sucks, non? I mean, I wanted to be nice and not ash on the floor, and end up ashing in something they are going to put food in. I should've just ashed on the floor. After a while, their youngest son came in. He was about 5 (I think, but I am very very bad at guessing age) and he was extremely cheeky and seemed so hyperactive. He sat down at the beginning, always grinning at me .. then he suddenly got up and danced to the music (which was played outside, at the shrine) and went completely crazy. Now, Indians love to dance. I've seen them dancing in the streets, shops, bars, clubs, on the train and so on. But this little guy seemed to love dancing more than that, he was taking it so much over the top that his whole family started laughing and he was forced to sit down to avoid further embarrassment. After they asked me whether I had kids and was married and if I would marry an Indian girl + some more small talk, Raj and I decided to leave.. so took a rickshaw back home and I can't even describe how happy I was, how honoured I felt, and how much that all impressed me. Weirdly enough, I swore to myself to write about that on the same evening because I wanted that you guys can see the enthusiasm I felt, but when I got home... I told myself that I'll write it the next day. And now, 1 1/2 weeks later, I am writing it.
The other day, when I was riding back from work I saw something weird. There was a lot of traffic on the other side of the road, the cars were hardly moving. But no one was using the horn. Then I saw it. It was a big group of men carrying a coffin. They were all dressed in white, head beards and wearing the traditional headwear. Sadly my rickshaw was going quite quickly, so I couldn't watch the procedure for long, but the image will last. The greatest thing about this procession was that no one used the horn. There was, is and will be a lot of tension between Hindus and Muslims in India, especially in Mumbai which has seen strong terrorism and racism by both sides in the 80s and 90s.
On my one free day, I decided to walk to my office and back, because I had failed taking pictures while riding in the Rickshaw, and there are amazing things to see on the side of the road. Sadly it wasn't so busy and many shops were closed because it was a Sunday, but it was amazing nevertheless. I started off by entering a buffalo farm. Yes, a huge buffalo farm in the middle of the city. There are actually quite a few and the government is apparently trying to get them to move out of the city, so there would be more place for houses. These buffalos are used for milk production mainly, I say mainly because a lot of people also enjoy their meat. I, myself, had only tried it once, but it tasted quite nice! These huge beasts look like they have no hair and the form of their horns is quite cool methinks. Well the I walked. Met this dude standing in front of a mosque and he grabbed me and looked at me while pointing at the mosque and saying 'Allah!' and again 'Allah!' and then I nodded and smiled and took picture of the mosque, he wasn't satisfied with the picture so I had to take another one, then he let me go. I turned around and asked him for a picture.. he was very proud and allowed me to take it.
As politics is an ongoing process here in India, and elections are close, there are a lot of election posters around and I have taken some photos of those and will explain...: So on one of these pictures, you see a dude sitting on a chair, wearing glasses. His name is Bal Thackeray and he is part of a Hindu-extremist party called Shiv Sena. Originally, they were a pro Maharashtra (this is the state where Mumbai is in) party, speaking for more rights to the marathis, especially since India's financial capital seemed to have more non-marathis in charge of the big companies. They were the force who pushed the name change from Bombay to Mumbai, they were the one's closing down the dancing bars and forcing the people to behave 'better' (in their views). Mumbai has seen a lot of terrorism and a lot of violence - clashes between Muslims and Hindus have always existed and it is believed that the Shiv Sena played some part in that. At the moment, the Shiv Sena is turning to wider politics, concerning all Hindus in India. I am not too sure on this, but I think that this has caused the nephew of Bal Thackeray, Raj Thackeray, to split from the Shiv Sena and start his own party (Maharashtra Navnirman Sena) which is putting the focus on Marathis. I arrived in Mumbai on the 2nd of October, since then there have been numerous incidents involving the name 'Raj Thackeray', at least in the Media. Apparently, a group of protestors attacked northern Indians when they were trying to get employment at a local railway station (it was a big event - many applicants, hundreds I believe.. at different testing facilities throughout the city), 4 people got killed. A few days after that, a young man from northern India apparently cam down to Mumbai to kill Raj Thackeray, but took some hostages in a bus and was then gunned down by the police, northern Indians are leaving the city according to the newspaper and many who wanted to come are afraid to do so now. Another poster which I took a photo of was in front of A Gurudwara, which is a Sikh Temple. I thought it was so interesting because the person you see in the middle is a Guru (one of several teachers in Sikhism), the person you see on the top left, is Sonia Gandhi. What is so special about Sonia Gandhi? She is an Italian born Indian politician. She married the son of Indira Gandhi. She is the leader of the congress party. But what is even more special? The poster. The party is supposed to show, that India is one, that no one will judge anyone on religion, race or anything else. Well.. you think .. okay. Since the separation of Pakistan, East-Pakistan (Bangladesh) and India, Sikhs in Punjab have fought for a country for themselves. In 1984, Indira Gandhi decided to storm the Golden Temple (the holiest temple of the Sikhs!) with the army and she got assassinated in the same year by her Sikh bodyguards. Now, in 2008, you see a picture of Sonia Gandhi with a Sikh Guru - I think it is amazing. Even more amazing because it is hanging on the outside wall of a Sikh temple.
The other day I went out at night.. the room was closing in and I had a well shit day. But it got better. After the bar, I wanted to go home.. but there are some dudes living in my street (I met one of them at the liquor store haha) and they always want me to chill and have a drink with them on the street - I wanted it as well, but something more exciting always came up. Now, I had time and sat down with them. As usual, conversation is difficult - but we get by somehow. We were just having fun, drinking cheap Indian whiskey+soda. In total, we were 4 people with additional ones always coming round and sitting down, having a laugh and then going away just until the next one came to sit down and hang out with us. There was: A security guard, 2 brothers (the older one was the one i met at the liquor store), a street-tea vendor, the guy selling the samosas and the other goodies on the street corner, an employee of the liquor store and so on. Everyone was from the area and well friendly. We shared cigarettes and drinks. So then we talked about religion and the two brothers said that they were Indian Muslims and the older one said 'In Urdu, we say assalamu alaikum' and I nodded and said 'and wa'alaikum assalam'. They looked at me like I had just done something incredible. I smiled and said 'Shukria!' (which means thank you). They were so happy ..! One of them even ran off and bought me a flower (a red rose to be precise) and everyone laughed at him for being gay. (You have to see: India is still a very traditional society where being gay (even in the big metropolitan Mumbai) is still not socially acceptable).

I just wanted to say: Thank you all for your feedback, I enjoy reading that you guys enjoy reading my blog. But, I am running out of things to write. Everything is becoming normal, I don't know what to take pictures of and so on, so I really really really need some ideas! Thank you 😉

So with this, I take my leave.
Bye!

---

Photos

Paan
the red 'juice' is spat out on the wall, the kids face fits, non?

Man
He saw me taking pictures of the Mosque, grabbed my arm and said 'Allah! Allah!' pointing at the mosque :)

Buffaloes!
he was posing when I was taking pictures.. really 'cool'

My next car..
..is a nano!

Lions Club
providing public drinking water!