Greetings fom Mumbai

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Another unsolicited installment in the “don’t-forget-about-me-entirely” email series:

Mumbai, India, 1 June 2001

We landed in Mumbai (aka Bombay) 3 days ago.

Mumbai is the new, non-colonial name for Bombay, quite possibly the wildest, most intense city on Earth. Extreme. Relentless.

Just the taxi ride from the airport was an experience. I’d thought the mini-van drivers in Bali were wild, aggressive drivers – and they are, aggressively passing in the face of on-coming traffic, honking, cutting off motorscooters, etc. But they’re like little old ladies compared to Bombay cabbies. These guys have only the most general concept of a “lane,” and it’s considered standard to have 3 or 4 cabs flying along in a 2-lane road. In the states, I’ve often told horrifying tales that some car “just missed me by inches.” Here, a couple inches is considered an opening to gun for. How we missed having half a dozen crashes is beyond me. At some points, it seemed we were actually accelerating into crowds and bicycles. I recoiled in anticipation of impact, but it worked. I couldn’t help think of all those stereotypes about bad, crazy foreign drivers that cut across traffic or almost hit us “good driving” Americans. Actually, they’re just using a different set of rules of the road, a set that requires much better driving skills. And very hefty use of horns. All the time. To respond to the many clear and present dangers or for no apparent reasons -- just to honk. Did I say all the time? All the time. Many vehicles have “Horn OK Please” painted on their backsides. I’ve asked our host what it meant. She said nobody knows.

And then there are the pedestrians, actually crossing – on foot – these wild multi-lane roads. At one point yesterday, there was a group of us going to lunch. The group included 2 Americans, an Indian raised in America and 3 Indians, one of whom was this elderly Ghandian devotee that’s been involved in many indigenous peoples’ struggles over several decades. As we were crossing a confused, multi-road intersection, our group was quickly split by the zooming traffic. We American-ized ones were left behind. Ahead, surrounded by a monsoon of honking, rushing cabs, I could see this Ghandi disciple, somehow looking serene, very erect, matter-of-factly wading through the rapids. The Indian raised in America, who had been left behind in the hesitant group, said that other Indians tell her she crosses streets like an American.

In the downtown areas (easily 10 times the size of Chicago’s loop), traffic is about 2/3 little black taxicabs, with nearly half the remainder big red busses, making quite the color scheme. Not so many private cars. Whether that’s because so few people have cars or so few feel competent to navigate the roiling traffic, I have no idea (probably both). But traffic is only the beginning of the assault on the sensibilities.

There are people everywhere. No, there are huge numbers of people everywhere. All the time. Living on the street, gathering in small groups, going to nightclubs, having weddings, begging, avoiding careening taxicabs, squatting alone or in groups, waiting. Going for a walk that first night, in the Colaba area known as the “tourist section,” we had to constantly step over the pavement-dwellers to the point that it felt like being on the sidewalk was intruding into private bedrooms.

And then there are the slums – mile after mile of cardboard box houses intermingled with some made of brick and even a few 2-story houses made of stone. All along the train tracks, mile after mile, people live there. I’ve been told that up to half the population lives in the slums. Relentless. At various points amidst the row upon row of cardboard shacks, it’s common to see a sign announcing the name of the “housing society” you’re passing. And, of course, it IS a society. Amidst the garbage and sewage and dirt and grime, people are forming relationships, leading lives as best they can in an incredibly oppressive environment. With the assault on the senses, it’s easy to forget that the average Chicagoan produces about 50 times as much garbage as an Indian – but , of course, our wealthy society has the resources to hide our trash, so everything at least looks “clean.”

On a few occasions so far, I’ve found myself taking train or bus or taxi over a course of several kilometers or more, and each time finding it striking how, whichever way you looked, down any road, the mobs of people and vendors and street people and everything just went on and on and on … relentless. Adding to the inescapability of it all is that our “home base” is an office, we sleep on the floor, and on 2 of 3 nights people we don’t know, involved in NBA, have shown up unexpectedly to spend the night on their own piece of floor. It’s that kind of place.

TAKING ACTION IN INDIA !!!

In India, we’re working with a group called Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA), which is fighting a series of huge dam projects that will destroy dozens of villages around the Narmada river without even delivering the electricity or water that the government and project sponsors are promising. These dam projects are SO bad that even the World Bank and most international finance institutions are backing away. It’s not unlike all the displacement battles we’ve fought in the US: big, false promises, lots of public money, few beneficiaries and poor people being sacrificed, lies about who is displaced and false claims by the government about how displaced people are well-treated and even better off. In a way, I feel right at home.

Yesterday, I was given the chance to speak – as one of several messages of solidarity – at an action by “Project Affected Persons” against one of the big banks that is financing one of the proposed dams along the Narmada river. The people tried to get into the bank’s office at the world trade center, were blocked by rows of police, sang, chanted, rallied, danced, waved placards in Hindi and English (made by yours truly and my partner-in-travels), as part of the effort to get a meeting with the head of IDBI bank. Yes, I felt right at home. At one point, one of the leaders was speaking (in Hindi) to the crowd. Someone asked if I understood what was being said. From deep in my core I thought, Maybe not all the words, but Yes, I understand exactly what is being said.

We’re still sorting out how we can best help with the NBA struggle as short-term volunteers. We'll be spending some time in the valley with the villagers being threatened, but more on that later.

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Photos

Protesting Enron
Long before Enron's S#@t hit the fan in the USA, it was ruining the lives of people across the planet.