Before travelling to Bombay, I read "Maximum City," a book by Suketu Mehta. Fantastic book - couldn't put it down. The book talks about Suketu's experiences in Bombay as an NRI - his experiences included getting deeply into the Bombay gangs, beer bars, slums, homeless migrants and other extreme communities! It paints a very depressing view of Bombay although it is very interesting. So I arrived in Bombay with a new viewpoint on what I was seeing on the street - the photo you see above is of the thousands of shacks that have been erected along each road. The book talks about "shooters" or people who are contracted by the gangs to carry out killings - the book talks about how these shooters are just ordinary looking people who go home each evening to their wife and kids - I was seeing a shooter on every motorcycle that went by!
We were in Bombay for over a week, just before going to Aurangabad. Our time in Bombay was completely filled up with social events, including meeting friends and family. We also walked around Bombay a lot - something I have not done before - it is very different to see a city on foot as compared to driving through it. We saw cricket being played at the Oval ground, went to the Oxford bookstore and did various other non-productive things! The photo to the left shows a Parsi structure of some kind, bang in the middle of a market!
A quick side-note: One thing that was definitely reinforced in us by our stay in Bombay was that India is booming in a big way. Compared to so many of the other countries we have been to on this trip, India is humming along quite nicely, on a scale that does not exist anywhere else other than in China. For example, the retail, hospitality and tourism sectors are growing fast - over 300 malls are being built right now in India, several cinema multiplexes have come up, hotels are available for the mid-tier also now and many tourist attractions are packaged up nicely now. Also, places like Reliance's Webworld are offering a great Internet experience - we have not seen this anywhere else we've been so far (Europe, Africa, Asia). Financial services companies are growing nicely. Construction is going on everywhere in India. Durable goods are flying off the shelves. New car models are being introduced every month. India is now the fastest growing market for mobile phones - we even used voice-enabled services here (such as booking movie tickets, getting train timetables etc.)!
On the other hand, there is some messiness in this large democracy - witness the several high-profile legal cases that are going on, including the murder investigation involving the Kanchi Shankaracharya, the police focus on pornography (MMS video, arrests at various Internet cafes, focus on porn movies etc.) and the Best Bakery trial (riots between Hindus and Muslims after the Godhra train burning), etc. What is amazing to see is that the media seems to be getting inside every story - what is correspondingly depressing is that many of the legal cases involve money, pay-offs and questionable usage of political connections. Also exciting to see is the growth of the middle-class in the cities, although the majority of the rural population has been left behind in this globalization effort.
Anyway, on with the rest of the blog...
Our one and only tourist activity was going to Elephanta - this is an island about 1 hour away from the Gateway of India. Elephanta has caves with some very nice statues of Shiva. We wouldn't recommend this to anybody as there are very few statues to see and most of the island and caves are covered in cow-dung. I've come to expect this but not inside historical monuments!
The nightlife in Bombay is happening, especially this time of the year, when lots of people converge to this city to party! A number of friends were visiting the city from San Francisco, Singapore, New York etc. We met up with them as well as friends living in Bombay. We went to Indigo (in Colaba) one too many times, Lush and Provogue Lounge (at Phoenix Mills) one too many times, Tendulkar's (the bar), Hawaii Shack (in Bandra), the Bombay Gym, US Club, NSCI club and a few other places. We also went to various house-parties. I had a few too many nights staying out till 6am...
It was interesting to note how Delhi'ites and Bombay-ites view each other. At one party, we had one Bombay'ite say that they think Bombay is much much more open and cosmopolitan that Delhi and that it is very easy for a newcomer to get to know people in Bombay. Just a few minutes later, another Bombay-ite said that there are many cliques in Bombay and that it is very hard to break in. And yet another person said that both Bombay and Delhi are very cliquey and that it is generally hard to get to know people in both these cities, unless one already knows somebody!
We did manage to get to a few restaurants, some good, some bad. The good restaurants included Basilico's (light salads, soups and sandwiches) in Colaba, Mahesh Lunch Room (great sea-food, including a fantastic tandoori pomfret) in Fort and Thai Pavilion (great Thai food) at the Taj Presidency. Topping our list of bad restaurants is Tendulkar's which is quite over-rated. It has very tight seating inside and bad service!
We spent a lot of time visiting relatives. Most of Smruti's extended family lives in Bombay. It was great to see everybody! Here're some of the photos from our visits:
-Dev
Is that Dev wearing glasses? I've never seen that before! You guys are getting all the karma points for visiting family :-)
Gautam
p.s. just ate at in-n-out (yumm)
Posted by: Gautam | Thursday, December 30, 2004 at 12:24 PM