2-Jan-05I'm sitting here crunching a Munch bar--wafer layers with delicious chocolayer, only Rs.5--that Zoey got me hooked on. It's 11pm at the end of my New Year weekend.
I found an Indian film showing with English subtitles, so went to that tonight with Howard (another American working here). He and I did some shopping earlier in the day. I'm not much of a shopper, but he is, so I figured I should try it since I know I'll have to show my sister the shopping spots in a few weeks. I have to say I prefer staying further up town near my hotel where it's not so touristy. In Colaba, the street vendors are non-stop on you to buy something.
Yesterday for New Year day, I got off my butt and took in some more sites. I visited Mahalaxmi Temple and Haji Ali Mosque - both walking distance, at least for me, from my hotel. Haji Ali Mosque sits out in the water. The causeway leading up to it had a steady stream of people coming and going and was lined with souvenir stalls on one side and beggars on the other. While there, some India tourists wanted to take a picture of their kid with me. Apparently this is thing for India tourists. Sorta like us wanting to take pictures of ourselves with the colorful village folk. "Look at our pictures from Bombay...Here's the Gateway, here's a mosque, oh and look, here's little Raju with a white person." Good to see things from the flip side, though I hear it gets tiring at places like the Taj Mahal where you're the object of too many photo-ops.
Along the approach to Mahalaxmi Temple, I was refreshingly ignored--no hawkers trying to sell me anything. It was a very busy day for devotees, they and I waited in line for almost an hour to enter. I had nowhere I had to be, so why not do as the locals do? I just let myself get pushed along with the crowd--literally. Security was tight, had to pass through metal detectors before taking off our shoes and being herded through the maze of a line to the temple where people pushed to get their tray of flowers, coconut and sweets blessed before being herded back out. I did get a little room to breathe after that before leaving the grounds.
New Year's Eve, I was able to leave work early and go to a party. Madhav, the guy stationed in SF who hired me, is back in town for the holidays. His friend threw a party at his big old historic house in Malabar Hill--three stories with grounds and gardens. At least half the folks I met there were NRI (non-resident Indians) living in the US, Australia, Europe, Africa. In typical (?) Bombay fashion dinner was served at around 2am. There was a DJ and dancing. The music was mostly America ranging from Eminem to Elvis, with some Indian and African stuff thrown in too. My favorite though was seeing an Indian Christina Ricci look-alike dancing to Achey Breaky Heart. A close second was when they played Hava Nagila and almost everyone, myself included, sang along.
Last weekend, Christmas, met Zoey at a beach in Goa. Goa was a Portuguese colony, so I saw several Catholic churches along the bus route from the airport (I've had a multi-religious week). It was great to get out of the city and see a bit of village life even if it was total beach tourist stuff. The air was cleaner, noise was much less. I kept away from the big hotel scene and stayed at a beach further south which just had huts. I got to ride a public bus for couple hours and see pigs on side of the road snorting through garbage and classic shots of water buffalo with those white long-necked birds on their backs. Coconut milk out of a green coconut, pinacolada at a table in the sand. you know all that good stuff.
We were both pretty out of it since I'd worked all night before getting on a plane, and she had been awake on a train all night from Kerala. We mostly just sat on the beach that day waiting for happy hour. Oh, wait, I did manage to take a good walk to a restaurant on a neighboring beach for lunch to sample some amazing Goan sea food dishes. During happy hour at our hut camp, we got some language lessons from the waiter, Stalin (pronounced with an "a" like stallion). Our new "friend" (dost) was also our waiter at dinner, and it became clear he was quite taken with Zoey. At one point he was telling us how much he liked her and that she reminded him of a "baddy guh". The Honey Bee brandy he'd been sipping had a great effect on his accent. A what? A body girl? That seemed quite bold. He repeated, circling the center part of his face and we figured out he was saying "bald eagle." At that I smiled and he went off to put in our order, but he got side tracked along the way (would we ever get our meal?). When he returned, after perhaps another shot of Honey Bee, he said "I will call you nose," and walked away (we hoped this time to the kitchen.) Wow, way to make it with the ladies. I couldn't help laughing though I thought Zoey might slug me.
A different guy (young) was helping to set up our room that night and for some reason thought we were Russian. He told us he loved Russians and hated Americans. We told him we were American and asked why he hated us? He said oh well he didn't hate us, but America supports Pakistan and he hates that. Said he had tried to join the Indian Army, but was too short. Not sure how prevalent that thought is. It's the first I've heard it here.
The next morning, we saw news about the earthquake and tsunami, but didn't quite realize the enormity of it all. That evening before dinner we sent email to immediate family letting them know we were on the west side, nowhere near affected areas. Then we're sitting for dinner at an outside table on the beach about 70 meters from the high water mark, chatting away blahblah, and I notice the tide has just come up almost to the table! We hopped up and moved stuff back. Then went and packed out bags in case we had to leave. The tide came in like that and then back out again about every 20 minutes for most of the night. It never actually reached the structures on our beach, but the beach just north of us had some flooding in buildings. This started about 14 hours or so after the waves first hit the east side of the country. And Goa is pretty far up the west coast.
I haven't turned on the TV tonight to watch the news , but last I saw yesterday the death toll from tsunamis was around 140,000 and had caused destruction as far as Somalia, Africa. Unbelievable. Yet I might as well be back in the U.S. for how little it seems to have touched life here in Mumbai. It's all you see if you turn on the news or open a paper, but people aren't talking about it during the day. I guess maybe it's like being in the midwest and hearing about an earthquake in Alaska or a hurricane in Florida. Before this hit, there were a couple other stories that dominated the news every day, but folks weren't talking about those either. Or maybe they were, but just not to me, and in a language I don't understand.
I'm finally starting to learn a few Hindi words. I had been so concerned before leaving the US about re-learning this software I'm working with that I barely even looked at my India travel book, let alone try to figure out anything of the language. Hey, here's my mini India culture/history lesson (brought to you by this non-resident, non-Indian)... Just about each state in India has its own language. Think of Europe as being one big country with all its languages, cuisines, and other cultural differences. English and Hindi are the sort of common across the board languages, but there's resistance from southern Indians to having Hindi as the official national language because it's more widely spoke in the north but is definitely a second language to those in the southern states, whereas English is a second language to everyone.
Well time for this weekend tourist to get ready for the work week. I'm going to get a quick news fix before going to bed. I've been fairly shut down emotionally since arriving here (on overload I think) but the coverage of this tsunami is starting to work on me.
