First night in Mumbai

I have no words. We arrived at 11:00pm and it was incredibly humid and hot. The rhythm of the noise was absolutely overwhelming and at the same time mesmerizing. After an hour waiting for our luggage, and going through several securities, we found an ATM at the airport and got some money. We then left the relative calmness of the airport and entered into Mumbai’s surrealism.

We walked out into a humid, hot, crowded, loud place that in some mystical way worked like Swiss clockwork. We found our landlord who picked us up and started what seemed like a suicidal ride through the “streets” of Mumbai. I don’t even know how to explain the traffic here, but if you thought Milan or Paris are crazy…you haven’t seen Mumbai! Our landlord explained that driving is a matter of who can yell the loudest. Even if you get into an accident, the rule is that whoever yells the loudest is right. I noticed that not one single car is dent or scratch free. In some kind of goofy way, it matches my impression on India. Appearance is everything: if you appear to be something or somebody or part of something, you are. A lady on the plane explained that most Indians prefer Bollywood movies over American movies because of the elaborate costumes. Her mother had once exclaimed that there was no point watching American movies when they wore the same from morning to evening. In Bollywood productions, it is all about costumes. And so also in life. Dress is not just the clothing or accessories but just as important, behavior. India is the poster child for this aspect.

As we drove through the dark, I glanced out of the windows. I saw high rise apartments buildings that had the slum look all over them, but are not considered slum here. We drove past filthy, dirty makeshift shops and food street vendors, past a group of people including children sleeping on the streets and in the gutters, dogs, garbage, and so many people!! I saw make-shift stores of old, abandoned and run down storage units that had been “”repaired” with any piece of cardboard of other material available. And yet….these are not the slums. Out apartment is a high rise complex, heavily guarded around the clock. Our landlord proudly showed us the street we would walk out into when leaving the apartment. We were mortified and frightened. He then graciously showed us around where it was safe to eat and where not. Again, we were mortified. What he had so proudly called the mall that was close by and where we could find anything Westerns wanted was nothing more than a conglomerations of makeshift store inside some kind of structure.

We were very, very tired after such a long trip and longed for getting to the apartment where we could shower and rest. We had no groceries in the apartment so we asked if we could stop and pick up some. Again, our landlord was so accommodating and stopped at three different places. I don’t even know how to describe the hole in the walls they consider grocery stores and we ended up buying only a soda each. We were tired, hungry and overwhelmed for lack of any better English word. Then we reached the apartment.

It is much smaller than the pictures indicated, dirty, very hot, and cockroaches including a huge, fat one in one of the bathrooms. The kitchen hasn’t seen decent cleaning in ages and there are layers of dust on the couch. Only one shower works and our initial joy over seeing a washing machine quickly died when it turns out not to work either. This was a very difficult moment and we consciously decided to focus on the moment only, not even the next day except for planning to get major cleaning supplies and anything else that could help us make this place feel like home for the next 8 weeks. We went to bed around 2:30 and tried to get some sleep, even if it was just a few hours.

Tomorrow would be a new day with its own challenges and opportunities.