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| The Mumbai Local Train |
Today marks one week in India for myself. I am in one of the largest Indian cities, Mumbai. From the moment I pulled away from the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport I quickly came to realize, and haven't forgotten since, that I have never been anywhere in the world like here. The pace of big city life here, the culture, the appearance of the streets, the ubiquitous extremities, the flavors, the aromas, the traditions and customs, and even the mannerisms have all completely isolated me to understand that India really is a world of its own. (It even has its own time zone - IST!)
Mr friend Eddie met me at the airport. I had gotten in a little late from my layover in Kuwait. That was an interesting experience-my first time stepping foot in the Middle East. From the Arabic scripture, the deep voiced arabic chanting and singing, as well as being surrounded by people in turbans, burqas, face cloths, and long cloaks-I was already enchanted by a totally eastern religious and cultural ambiance. After a 7 hour layover and crazy jet streaming through time zones across the globe, I was finally seeing Eddie after almost two months since he left for the Philippines. We high-fived and jumped in the funky auto rickshaw* that is so characteristic of Asia and drove away from the airport buzzing through tiny paved streets past the modern architecture of the airport and right to the wider and busy pot-hole cracked streets and massive intersections that were bustling with a million people and lined with various food and craft stands. Right away we drove into a different world, where buildings are rotting along the streets and slum looking shelters are stacked high upon one another. I looked to my left and saw a man in ripped clothes running along the street manually pulling a wooden tow full of tomatoes, mangos and wood. On my right was a woman dressed in a Muslim all black burqa that covered all of her head and body down to her feet, except for her eyes, holding her face cloth and standing in the median between the rushing traffic as black smog clouded around her. After waiting to cross, she darts across the street right in front of our rickshaw with her child rushing behind hand-in-hand. The crowds of people were mixed with bright colors, as we passed most men in button-down and tucked-in dress shirts with retro and striped designs, along with tighter pants with dress shoes. The women were the eye catchers as many of them were covered in sari designs draping around them. As I sat in wonder watching the Indian big city scenery roll by me, I was awoken from my jet lag to the intense multi-sensory introduction to this foreign place. "Welcome to India."
Eddie told him, "Andheri East please, J.B. Nuggar." The cab driver shook his head sideways, appearing like he was saying no, and looked forward continuing to drive. To say yes here is not done by nodding up and done, but rather rotating your face side to side like a bobble-head figure. It took me awhile to get, but I have a feeling that now it will be hard to stop doing even once I return to the US. As we drove in the three wheeled little box of a rickshaw, I was so confused and completely overwhelmed with where I was. Only 10 min in and I was wide-eyed and bedazzled by the Indian street scenes. We flew through traffic ubrubtly jolting from right to left, cutting people off, just barely missing by a hair running over pedestrians that were crossing from all directions. Motorcycles zoomed all around us, some with up to 5 people packed on. Whole families rode by us on one motorbike, with the children staring at us like we were the strangest looking people they had seen. There were cars coming right up to the sides of the car, no clear lanes painted or followed, another rickshaw driving right towards us in the wrong direction, and a cow walking along the smoggy loud black traffic atmosphere that was filled with rushing vehicles from all directions. We were driving on the left side of the rode, a traffic system left behind by the British Raj. But, it was hard to even notice this as we randomly kept switching sides of the road. I quickly learned that whatever works in India, go with it. Just don't cause an accident and no one will care.
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| Vegetable Seller (subziwalla) |
We pulled up to his neighborhood of "J. B. Nagar" and began to zoom through small curving streets of the community. Immediately I smelled an intense combination of Nag Champa incense, raw sewage, roasting Chai tea, fresh cilantro, rotting vegetables and who knows what else, spices and sweet scents, and a variety of so many other tantalizing and unrecognizable smells. My senses were completely overstimulated. I hadn't really realized but Eddie was talking to me the whole time. I was so distracted with all that was going on while he was already adjusted and normalized to all of the organized chaos that was Mumbai. "Are you tired from the trip, or are you ready to run around with us today?" I was so ready! As we stepped down from the rickshaw, I realized I was already sopping in sweat from the hot humid air. The sun was kind of breaking through the clouds, but right now is Monsoon season in most of central and southern India. I was told it was a pretty sunny day compared to the others. We walked up to his building that was covered in cracks, dirty grime and black rotted coloring over the baise stuccko. It looked over 100 years old, but actually was only 35 years old. Construction in Mumbai isn't the best quality, unless its for a really wealthy person or company. The extreme weather conditions of so much rain and humidity also really put a wear on the buildings here.
My first day was intense. It was probably not like most peoples first days in India. I walked into a small flat that was filled with about 6 other sleeping bodies scattered around the place. These were Eddies group members of Haath Mein Sehat (Hindi for "Health in Your Hands"). They were all here for the summer implementing a water sanitation, health and education project in a few of the slums of Mumbai. Mumbai, or Bombay, is 55% slums. The gap between the rich and poor here is tremendous. Health is a huge concern here also, as many children and adults lack simple health care and education of preventing sickness. Diarrhea is a huge problem as sickness is spread through contaminated, mishandled or unproperly stored water and food. With clean water not being supplied or maintained by the government, its up to the people to take care of themselves, but sometimes their sources for water especially is not a clean source. So many people, especially children, die or suffer long terms effects of diarrhea caused by water bourne disease and dysentary. With all this said, HMS was here to work with local college students and schools to go into a few slums and educate children in schools and family in households how to prevent sickness. So after meeting a few members, a few which were sick and all of whom were tired as the prepared themselves for another tiresome day in Mumbai as they drank hot gatorade and peanut butter for hydration and energy and the girls covered themselves in Indian saree and scarf material, we ate some breakfast and left for Dharavi, the largest slum in Asia.
We stopped on the street after leaving and bought my first Chai from a man that was cooking it up on the side of the street. It was so delicious and strangely pleasant to drink the boiling hot chai in the high temperatured weather. We got into a rickshaw that took us to the train station. The Western Railway runs along the western route of India and travels through central and suburban Mumbai. The cars are separated by 1st class, 2nd class mens and 2nd class womens. The separation was weird to me at first for a public transit, until I realized that it was for the safety of the women as the trains get so overpacked. I had a ticket for second class-a great start as a Westerner to these trains. The train approached and as it came nearer, I saw bodies hanging out the doors of the train. I was confused. Men started shouting and jumping off the train before it stopped. As the door stopped right in front of me, more than a dozen Indian men pushed off of the train and stampeded past me, while simultaneously two dozen others crammed from behind me and started pushing me. Always remember- "Do as the locals do." The only way I was getting on was to push with them. I shoved and grabbed a handle of the train as it began pulling away. It was nuts!! All of these people hanging off and hundreds of bodies crammed into each car. We began to take off and I finagled my body inside and just fit into the door. I just laughed and gave Eddie a look of craze. Once again, "Welcome to India!"
The amount of people here is absolutely mad! Everywhere there were massive crowds filling streets and buildings. After getting beat up upon entering the train, we had to still mantain standing and holding our things without getting lost amongst the people or getting pushed off at the wrong stop. Then make our way to the opposite side to exit the door at our stop, shoving people, stepping on legs and feet, pushing faces and arms out of the way. An older man looked me in the eye and said "Which stop?" "Bandra!" "Ok, wait and we will get you out." I was a little skeptical about all of these people really caring about these two random white guys, but sure enough, at our stop, people began shouting and pushing us through. Just as we were getting to the door, the train started departing and we jumped out while it was still moving! I caught my breath and just laughed at all of my soar muscles, then we got back on track and started moving forward.
Next we checked out a Mumbai College where we met with a group of about 12 Indian college girls. They work with HMS and will carry the project through the year. We discussed proper ways to approach families in the slums and discuss disease spread through germs, the importance of hand-washing and practiced a song they all came up with in Hindi about washing your hands. It was really sweet and pretty cool to be around. Afterwards we went to Dharavi, what most people refer to as a "slum," although it is actually a place way more complex than just a ghetto.
We got out and walked one block to his flat. The neighborhood was a suburb, so pretty far from central Mumbai and from the tourist areas. We were the only light haired and light colored people in the streets. Most people didn't pay any attention, other stared and smiled, laughed or shouted hello. Some were absolutley dumbfounded to the pupose of our presence in their neighborhood. I became so paranoid with traveling through Latin America that I took their stares in threat and looked down and held onto my things tight. I would eventually learn about the Indian stare and its true intention is simple curiouslity. Most people are uninterested in robbing you, but more interested in your western appearance and you completeley foreign look to them. So many faces walked by, some with bindhis and tikka painted on their forehead (usually in red), some with small usually white muslim prayer caps others with big glaring eyes through face coverings.
We arrived at an elementary school where we met with the organizer of another program that HMS is working with as well as a female prinicipal of the school. We walked into the humble small school classroom with wooden long tables as desks, and about 45 small 1st grade Indian children stared in playful wonder at us. I was so excited to be there with them, and it was an awesome experience as we taught the kids and practiced the Hindi hand washing song that the group made up. It was amazing to see the kids catch on and do the motions of washing their hands along to the song. Afterwards we collected samples of the bacteria on the kids hand before they washed their hands. It was so great to help out and be included. The kids were so weirded out as we put their hands in water bags and rubbed them-they stared into my eyes and at my hands and watched their hand in the bag, saying a few things to me in Hindi randomly. I felt bad that I couldn't speak back and had to have a college student from Mumbai help translate.
Remember, this is all still my first day. . . .
We eventually left the children and took off for some shopping around a crazy Indian market and busy shopping street, along with my first Indian meal. I was harassed right away by ten different men selling misclenaious junk, from little pink elephants on strings, to huge maps of India, to jeans and underwear. Street children followed me for blocks asking me for money or to buy them food. The poverty here is intense, and the poor are in pretty bad shape. It's an tremendously difficult moral dilemma to decide whether or not to give money. I kept giving money away in Latin America to the poor, but they would keep asking for more, then more and more children, old women or other people would appear. Here its the same, and I quickly had to realize that handing out money on the streets like some rich saint was not the key to solving India's desperate problem with poverty. As a foreigner, the responsibility can not be put on you to act this way, nor should you be flashing money around arrogantly to people. I am a broke student in my country, and I study poverty, so I knew helping in other ways to actually solve permanent problems was probably more efficient than these temporary fixes. But, it never got easy to say no and then continue on to buy crap souvenirs for people or more food for myself, and then pass a person covered in flies and starving to death. Whenever I could, I just gave them the food or water I already had.
The night ended with dinner in Reclamation, another "slum" community. We met a few guys in their late teens in the rain near their naighborhood and they walked us to their house. We entered a small 15 feet by feet room and sat down on the floor. We met Vicky and a his brother and their friends. They were all Indian and all from Reclamation. HMS had been working with them the previous year and they invited us over for dinner. They were funny and nice guys and they showed us a really fun time. We listened to Michael Jackson and Vicky showed us some dance moves and made me show off some amateur pop-and-lock moves I bragged about. He totally called me out then showed me up! The experience was great as they opened up the doors to their home to us and I saw their world for a night. We had dinner and ate the tradiational Indian way-with your hands! I laughed at the doctor visit I had the weeks before and the warning of where to eat and how to eat, and here I was, first night and on the floor of a house in a slum neighborhood eating with my hands. This night humbled me and of all the things Ive seen here in India so far, this is the experience I will never forget. They bosted Bollywood moves and sang songs in Hindi and they each had their own talent. These guys showed me high spirits and seemed so human, all in a place that was bare concrete floors and a blue tarp for one of their walls.
This was only my first day, and I still have so much more to get to know. I am excited as a week has gone by now and these experiences have already been combined with so many more. Over and out for now. . . .
tons of hip restaurants with beer and Western food. We were put into this super fancy YWCA hotel thatcosted Rs. 2000/- per night (note, the highest price I paid for a room last summer was in Kolkata for Rs. 500/- per night and this was expensive to me). We had a driver take us there. This one was nicer; he showed us important landmarks like temples, neighborhoods and movie star’s houses. He was also patient with my crappy Hindi and spoke with us. It was nice to be driven and to have air conditioning-but I was itching to hop on the trains and have the excitement of figuring things out on my own. Unfortunately though, after that not much happened for the rest of the day as we battled jet lag and heat, except for a nice night walk to McDonalds for frozen yogurt (I gave in. . .) and to the Gateway to India and Taj Hotel. We were so close to going swimming at the Taj until we got caught!
drums). We exchanged some funny stories and I heard all about the reactions of the new group members to India, I felt so happy to be with other cool Berkeley students such an awesome place. I knew that the summer held so many crazy situations for all of us. I also felt compelled to stay in Mumbai! Afterwards, we wound up in some strange bar with American posters and American 80s music. It was awesome! We requested Lady Gaga, something they searched for and tried to figure out for almost 20 minutes. It was great to get my only night of drinking and socializing at a bar in for the summer since I was going to be in the eastern state of Jharkhand for the rest of the summer, a dry state with no alcohol. 
