Gap On!: Back to Bomb!

(Friday, April 29^th-Sunday, April 31^st)

Truly, it wasn't back to Bomb because I'd never been before, but I hope someday to be able to say that very phrase from Midnight's Children when I'm actually going back to Bombay.

First thing is first. Bombay or Mumbai? In 1995, Bombay was renamed Mumbai, after the Hindu goddess Mumba Devi. The idea was to give back Indian names to cities that were named and inhabited by the British. So naturally, I thought I'd better refer to the beautiful seaside city as Mumbai. However, the renaming happened in my lifetime (if only just) and therefore it happened in a lot of people's lifetimes. So having grown up in their city of Bombay, all of the people I've met who are true natives or locals, just call their city as they've known it, Bombay. All of the signage in the city says Mumbai this and Mumbai that, but all the people tell you that they live and love Bombay. So, when you go, you can make your own decisions as to what you'll say.

I’ve waited too long to write this to have it be fresh in my mind, I remember what happened but not all of the emotions and adrenaline and confusion and thoughts that went with it. So I’m going to lay it out as best I can. Emily, Anita, Pooja and I (all friends from St. Johns, Emily a public health professional and Pooja and Anita American med students) flew into Mumbai on Friday morning, to start our luxurious (it truly was) weekend in a new city. In Pooja’s family, only one family member has stayed in India to ‘hold down the fort’ and it was that one uncle, his wife, their son and their enormous German Sheppard with whom we stayed with. Traveling in India gets easier and easier the more people you know. We arrived Friday at their beautiful house, close enough to sea so that breeze blew in the curtains and across the expansive terrace and sunroom. It was a beautiful house and lifestyle I’m not accustomed to or necessarily very comfortable with; one involving drivers and cooks and maids and class status. But I really appreciated the hospitality and I can say that we were very well looked after.

Now, we did a thing on Friday that I’m not sure I can properly explain. We took a tour of the Dharavi Slum, which is one of the biggest slums in the world, the second largest in Asia, surpassed only by Karachi. Now, I’m going to say it one more time. We took a tour of a slum. It sounds like an incredibly voyeuristic practice. And though it turns out to be really incredible, I still wonder if it wasn’t a bit…well, immoral and sick. I had my doubts but we were a team of public health interests and future doctors, and we were doing it. We took the train and met up with our tour guide, Asskash. No photos or videos of any kind are to be taken during the tour. And the tours are run by an NGO that works within Dharavi, organizing education outreach and kids activities. Our tour guide informed us that the tours were a direct outcome of Slumdog Milliionare being released, because it was set and filmed in Dharavi and suddenly foreign people with money were interested. Aakash was part of a hip hop dance team called the “SlumGods” and was a part of the Dhavari community, living there and working with the NGO. Right off the bat, I need to be clear about something. You need to separate the ideas of poverty and slums in your mind. And the misconception that people living in poverty aren’t productive. Because Dhavari smashed a lot of my stereotypes and expectations right away. An incredible amount of money circulates through Dhavari each year, and there are factories and production lines that are owned by individuals who live within Dharavi. ‘Slum’ in the case of some of people living there is simply that the government owns the land, even though individuals own the property and businesses. There are communities of Muslim, Hindu, Christian and Catholics within Dharavi, some separate, and some mixed. There are schools, medical centers, stores, factories, and higher education opportunities all within Dharavi. But it’s not all roses either. Aakash took a very proud, very positive stance on Dharavi, and led us through very challenging conditions to witness while explaing the recycling programs and schools. It was like he had to provide some contrast, and it wouldn’t make sense to move through some one’s community only with the intention of seeing how terrible and hard it was to live there. You don’t need someone to tell you that. You can move through Dharavi and see that a family of five lives in a room the size of your bathroom. What you can’t see without the help of proud and local eyes are the artists and factories, the cultural history and the fierce will to live and love and build community. So I tried really hard to not just to hold my breath when we passed the trash fires and open sewage, but to tell the kids my name when they asked, and learn about the productions of fine leather and plastic recycling and all around positivity that Dharavi had to offer. And I still feel as if I can’t put into words what we saw, because it wasn’t a terrible sight or an inspiring work force, it was just a community, different from the way I live and facing challenges I’ve never even had to think about. But it exists and so do it’s people and it probably always will.

Yash, Pooja’s cousin was our tour guide extraordinaire for the remainder of our trip. I slept a blissful night in the air conditioned guest room with Pooja, Anita and Emily in the other, and then woke up to coffee on the terrace. The only thought I could have as I sat on the sunny terrace and felt a sea breeze on my face was that if all goes well, my life will be like this. But life can’t all be coffee and terraces and sun. So we packed up and went kayaking in the bay for the morning. The water wasn’t clean. In fact, the waves that brushed against the shore were a soft brown color, and yet it was still beautiful. We were in south Mumbai, in the water that fills what they call the Queen’s necklace, because beautiful buildings line the curved water front of the bay like the necklace of a fine lady. We got as far as Godrej’s yacht, Godrej being one of the richest men in India and his yacht being enormous. From here we saw some small dark dolphins in the surf ahead of us and I sat in my double kayak with Anita and said again, that even without coffee and terraces, if all went right, my life could still be like this, sitting in a kayak looking out at Mumbai in the morning light.

Boats in. Showers on. Clothes on. Day on. We rolled out into the city visiting Lonely planet recommended restaurants and simply seeing the sights of Bombay. The city is beautiful but I felt a little weird because all the architecture I loved and all the beautiful buildings and galleries were built or based on the British. Bombay is city that has not forgotten when it was colonized. And it’s been taken back, but even some of the most standout monuments are things proclaiming British landings and victories. The photos below tell that tale better than I can…

It's a train station...

The team

Gateway to India, which reads "Erected to commemorate the landing in India of their imperial majesties King George V and Queen Mary"
They were like 'lemme just through up a casual monument so you never forget we came and colonized you' ouch.