Mumbai

**pics/vids added as of 6/1; post complete**

Mumbai is an easy place to like.  The people here seem to be more friendly than in Delhi.   The roads seem nicer, the cars not-so-smashed, and more signs are in English.  Modern automobiles mixed in with the old 1960’s British cabs and rickshaws.  There are cows and slums and dilapidated tenements.  And there are stores for Levi’s and Sony.

There are architectural stunners, historic monuments and wealth.  People with Benz’ and Beamers and Jags and drivers for them too.  And yet, just a few minutes away, poor people wash clothes by hand in an enormous laundry operation - rubbing blocks of soap on garments and slapping them on stones.  For the hospitals, they boil the sheets in 55 gallon drums of water, heated over wood fires and ironed with charcoal irons.

It is a city that seems to have everything going on all at once, and it’s like 2 parts India and 1 part America.

In my AC train coach on the way down to Mumbai, I met Nishant (version 2) and his wife, Rashi, and a pair of mid-twenties French ladies.  Nishant and his wife live in Mumbai and were travelling around (domestic Indian tourism is huge here).  The French women were doing study, presumably at the University of Mumbai.  All were extraordinarily nice and congenial but the trip down wasn’t easy.

I excused myself to the restroom a bit before bedtime, and while I was gone, the Chai-wallah had come through, and like the gracious people they were, someone bought a round for everyone.  Well, chai is about the last thing that I wanted to have before bed, because a) it’s dairy which often doesn’t sit well with my guts, especially before bed, and b) it’s caffeinated.  The chai cups are very small though, and so I sipped at it until it was gone, which if it were water, would be about 2 large gulps.

I stay up about an hour longer thinking I’m in the clear and head up to my top berth.

About an hour or so after I lay down, the air-conditioner in the AC car quits working and it’s too hot for my belly.  The jostling from the train and the overheating from the wool blanket I had on (before I woke up to realize the AC was out), conspired to give me some serious cramps.  Easy breathing, try to relax.  If you try to get down at this very moment, you will probably crap your pants and that will be good for nobody.  Easy, easy.  The cramping subsides after maybe 10 minutes or so, and I get down, find my shoes and head out to the toilets on either end of the car.  In I go, but the light is burned out.  That’s ok, I have a flashlight.

10 minutes later and I come out of the can no lighter than I went in.  My body is not cooperating and the cramping is getting worse.

I’m now standing out by the doors of the train car, where people get on and get off.  I’m very tired, and a bit woozy from the cramps, and I’m just trying to get through this episode.  The TTE (Travelling Ticket Examiner) is there in the same place, along with two other railroad guys.  I’m just leaning up against their bench.

The hot air passing us by through the open doors on both sides feels somehow refreshing on the sweat collected on my brow from the intestinal squeezing.  All I can do is wait.

About 45 minutes later I feel like I have ridden it out.  I’m feeling quite a bit better and my guts are settled.  The air-conditioner has been working again for about 15 minutes and has sufficiently re-cooled the coach, I go back into the section, drop my shoes and head up to my berth again and go to sleep.

Not two hours later, I am up again.  The air-conditioner has stopped working once more, and I’m overheated.  My belly is swollen and I look pregnant.  For that matter, I feel like I’m having contractions.  I have to get down right now.  I considered not even getting my shoes, but I chanced it, bent over and quickly grabbed them.  Flashlight in my pocket and a bottle of water too.  Into the squatter.

10 minutes again and my guts aren’t moving, they’re just squeezing each other like a kid twisting a water balloon.  The cramps intensify, I’m sweating profusely at this point, and I’m getting light-headed.  I feel like I’m going to pass out and vomit at the same time.  I’m rationalizing.  There’s nothing in your stomach now, why would you get sick.  My mouth starts watering, and I’m thinking this is not going to end well.  More water.  Now, my mouth is filling with water nearly as fast as I open and let it drop out.  I don’t have the energy or will to spit, and it’s just going on the floor.

I’m bent over, crouched low on my feet, holding on with both the handrails, my face pointed towards the hole that goes to the ground.  My stomach flips and then flips again.  I resign myself to getting sick in this public wasteland.  The urine and grime and bits of #2’s all mushed together into the cracks on the floor.  I briefly imagine myself on all fours in this mess, getting sick.  And as my body is gearing up for this imminent event, my mind starts detaching.

My consciousness starts pulling back, and it begins to feel in some way like it’s happening to someone else.  I’m now rational and calm and almost disinterested, but compassionate.  I think, well, if it happens, it happens.  As filthy as you will be, and as gross as it will be, you will be able to get clean again in a shower.  I’m thinking all of this very rationally while my body is spooling up for the inevitable.

And then, just like a light switch, my body decided to do an about face, and go the other way.  I respond with cat-like reflexes and manage to get into the proper position before making good on my intent from a few hours earlier.

Diarrhea out of the way, my sweats subside, the cramping starts to fade, and I literally stumble out of the toilet like a hypoglycemic.

A couple of minutes in the breezeway by the doors makes the sweat evaporate, and I make it back to the bunk and crawl up.  I pray to get and stay asleep for the rest of the ride, and make a mental note that courtesy is not worth what just happened.  I should have kindly refused the chai.

I hit Mumbai actually feeling good and refreshingly full of energy despite the nighttime ordeal.

Nishant and Rashi are picked up by their driver at the Mumbai train station and kindly drop me off near my first objective.  On 10th lane of Ketwadi, in the Girgaum section of Mumbai, there lived a man until 1974 named Nisargadatta Maharaj.  He wrote a book called, “I Am That” that was translated into English by another sage, and it is essentially a text on non-duality, or Advaita.

I have read that book and have found it very interesting.  And not the least because of Nisargadatta’s person.  He was he a sage, a being connected to the It in a conscious way, he was a teacher and a guru.  He was also argumentative, cantankerous, and a chain smoker.  Life manifests itself in a million billion ways, and here was another version of Truth, a version that didn’t fit the traditional mold of calm and staid and reverent.

Nisargadatta held satsang (gathering) in his tiny loft, and had something like 7 incense burners, each with 8 sticks going at once.  And he was smoking nearly constantly.  I’m not sure how people were able to stay in there.  Because, thanks to some helpful locals, I did find this place.  And I’ve been in this room.  And boy, is it tiny.

The local people have no idea who Nisargadatta was let alone that he was in their neighborhood.  Some relatives of his live in that place now, but there’s no sign anywhere that such a man lived and taught in this space.  There is a picture on the wall to commemorate him inside the satsang loft, and that is about it.  The loft is now a living room, but the residents still let me in.  They fed me some sweets on the way out.  I took them a small necklace I bought down the street for 20rs as a token of appreciation.  I was looking for flowers and found none.

The visit was brief, but I was glad I got to see the place, and I am apparently one of a very few who have done so.

I sat outside on the step and had a conversation with a few people.  The people on the ground floor have a travel agent booth.  They don’t know that it used to be Nisargadatta’s bidi shop,  or that he was a cigarette roller and he sold them in between satsangs.

After I was done at Nisargadatta’s, I grabbed a cab down to the Gateway of India, which is a massive structure built to honor the place where King George V and Queen Mary landed in 1911 on their visit to their Indian subjects.

As I’m walking there, a man is pointing to me and says something to the effect of stop, stop, you have something in your ear.  I’m thinking, what?!  I’m immediately concerned that there’s a bee (to which I’m allergic) or some kind of insect, and tells me to hold still that he’ll get it.  He comes quickly over and holding my ear with one hand, he sticks something that I don’t immediately see into my outer ear canal and is appearing to scoop something.  I can feel it.  All the alarms in my head are going off, and yet, I’m seemingly paralyzed because the man’s got what ends up being a long, thin piece of metal, like a straightened paper clip, now inside my ear.  He keeps showing me what he’s getting out, and I am so confounded.  And before I can move or object, the rod is back in my ear (it’s hard to talk when there’s something in your ear like that.  You feel like if you talk he might stab your brain or something!)

But the whole thing is a ruse.  He has some kind of wax that he has hidden somewhere, and has deposited on the outside of my ear canal when he has me unexpectedly stop.  Then he “cleans” it out, and now wants money.  What a racket!  It’s not like he has a sign that says, “Ear Cleaning - 50rs”…  The whole thing is under false pretense.  I don’t know why I gave him any money at all, but I gave him a fraction of what he was asking, we argued, and I walked away.  What a letch.

I grabbed some pics of the Gateway of India, and headed to get something to eat which was a thali from a restaurant teaming with local people and not a foreigner in sight.  After the food, I negotiate on a cab and head to the Dhobi Ghat, where the laundry operation is going on.  On the outside, it has a sign that plainly says something to the effect of “This is property of the city of Mumbai. All photography is strictly prohibited.”  On the inside, however, there is a guy who says he operates on behalf of the poor people working there, and they collect money to help with the education costs of the worker’s children and for medical expenses.  He says they live there in the same compound, and sleep 25 people in a room.  I am willingly extorted 4 dollars, and am somehow now able to take pictures and videos, and also have a guide to show me the whole operation.  Unfortunately, as it’s later in the afternoon, most of the washing is already done, but I get to see a bit of everything anyway.

I take my pictures and some video, and I head back to my waiting cab and now go to the University of Mumbai and the High Court for some photo opportunities on the architecture there.

The cabbie drops me off and I walk to the gate but am refused entry.  I ask why.  They don’t give me an answer.  Other people walk in the gate, and then a car goes through too.  I tell them I just want to take pictures (all I have is my camera bag and I show them).  They are disinterested.  So, I get what I can from outside the gates (I’m glad I brought the 600mm lens), and head to High Court.

I take my camera out and another guard in a little booth starts saying no pictures.  I ask why, and get no response.  So, I walk over in front of the guy and ask again.  I say all I want to do is take some photos.  He says no pictures.  At this point, I realize that I am standing smack in front of the barrel of his machine gun.  It is about 6 inches away from my sternum and points directly through me.  I knew I wasn’t going to get shot; he wasn’t even holding the gun anyway (it was mounted), but you simply do not stand in front of a gun.

I walked down the way a little bit and decided to push my luck.  I took out my camera (slowly, mind you, so he didn’t have a reason to think I had anything but a simple camera), and started taking photos.  He saw me and didn’t say anything.  Maybe what he couldn’t communicate in English was that I couldn’t take a picture of him (and his machine gun).

Regardless, I got some decent pictures (again, refused entry inside the gates) and headed to the Victoria Terminus (aka CST) Railway Station.

The VT is the busiest railway station in all of India and is beautiful (on the outside) to boot.  The architectural detail is stunning, it is living piece of art.  There are few places to get a good shot of the structure though.  Partly because of the closeness of the surrounding streets and buildings, and partly because of traffic lights and signs and wires obstructing the building.  I did the best I could though, and got some decent shots, in between begging children pulling on my shorts for rupees.  One very little one, I decided to take some pictures of (and of course give the little tyke some coins).  She skipped away, “Yaaaaay.  Yaaaaay” when I gave her a one rupee coin and a two rupee coin.

I get into the station and wait in the air-conditioned 1st class waiting room for a couple of hours and watch some movie in Hindi that has a lot of gunplay, then get up, buy a couple of waters, a Fanta, and pack of biscuits (remember the biscuits from Khuri?) for the trip.  I head over to platform 18 and my train is already there, and my AC coach is open for passengers to board.  I get on and find 4, late thirties women from Wales sharing my section.

I can’t believe how many foreigners I’m running into on the trains now days.  Right on the dot, the train slowly pulls out of the station, and we are Goa-bound.