Life, Cont'd

Χθες έκλεισα δύο ολόκληρα χρόνια στην Ελλάδα! Πρέπει να είμαι ελληνίδα κιόλας έτσι; Ακόμα δε μαυρίζω όμως -- πότε θα γίνει αυτό; Περιμένω πολύ ώρα.

About two weeks ago I returned from a 9 day trip with my mother and little sister to Mumbai. My little sister Sara (Indian name Sonali) was adopted by my familyfrom a village near Hyderabad when she was 7 months old, and we had always told her that when she turned twelve, we'd take her to see India. Well, she turned twelve last January, and here are my impressions.

The entire city of Mumbai (formerly Bombay) -- and maybe the entire country -- smells like a combination of incense and body odor. It's not a bad smell, but if you don't like incense, it would take a while to get used to. We stayed in a hotel in the Colaba district of Southern Mumbai. Southern Mumbai is known as the higher-class half of the city, while those from Northern Mumbai often travel each day to the South for work. As India's largest city, it is home to about 14 million people, and is located on something like a very small peninsula on Western India.

After the scent, the second thing you notice is the architecture. All buildings, which are generally quite old, all appear very "victorian" for lack of a better word, with ornate columns, windows, and roofs. Mixed in with these you find Hindu and Jain temples, some more rickety structures, taxis and carts, and LOTS of people. All of the buildings alike, however, are typically water damaged, most likely due to the incredible amount of yearly rainfal as well as their age, leaving dark streaks and residue on most building exteriors.

There is also a very large number of homeless, which you can see lining the sidewalks, but probably fewer beggars than I run into in Greece, possibly due to a higher employment rate, or good police enforcement, because begging is illegal. In an amusing example, one restaurant we ate at boasted that Bill Clinton had once ate there, in an article pasted on the table. The article, though, further stated that his secret service agents "had a hard time believing that most of the waiters at the restaurant did not have home addresses because they were homeless."

The third thing you notice is the noise! Mumbai is a very loud place. The honking is non-stop, and together with the cars and people makes for a very noisy atmosphere indeed (for you Greeks: Athens seems absolutely peaceful by comparison). Indians don't tend to use mirrors or turning signals while driving -- at least as far as I can tell. Instead, it is expected that you will simply honk when you are near or approaching another car, so that they know you are near or want to get through. In fact, on the back of every truck, you will see, often ornately painted in lots of colors, the phrase "Horn OK Please," which is asking drivers who are near the trucks to honk their horn so that the truck knows they are there and shouldn't make any sudden movements. There are pictures of these signs on the album page. Traffic lights also seem to be only a guideline, and often if there is no traffic officer present, people will just enter the intersection. When we came from the airport in the middle of the night, I don't believe we stopped for any of the 20 or more red lights we passed. If it's a busy time of day, this means people from many directions try to weave through any opposing traffic, and with -- you guessed it -- lots of honking.

The second day we went on a "village tour," with a non-profit tour organization called Reality Tours. In this tour we visited 3 villages, each a couple hundred people in size, as well as one tribe, all within the province Marashtra. It was in these villages that we had the best food, by FAR, of the entire trip. We were served flat bread that unlike naan was made entirely out of rice, and very soft. With this bread or just your hands you scoop up the other parts of the dish, which are rice with amazing somewhat spicy sauces, as well as sometimes chicken or fish. Unfortunately I don't know exactly what was in all the foods, but it's very possibly the best food I've had in my life.

Most activities, at least in the villages, are done on the floor. There is no real furniture in the houses, just rooms in which you can lie different mats down depending on the activity. For example, when we ate, we put down some mats for us to sit on; when it was time to sleep, we put down some thicker mats and blankets. Eating, except in nice restaurants, is done with your hands.

On these tours we had one guide all to ourselves, which allowed us to ask pretty much whatever we wanted. This makes a huge difference. We learned for instance that arranged marriages is still the most common practice, maybe comprising 98% of Indian marriages today. We also learned about how shamed drinking and smoking are in the society; men may not admit that they drink or smoke (or if they do they must tell the gods as well as probably have their dowry reduced), and women usually don't at all. My mom did however venture once to offer a local man a cigarette while she was out smoking, whom she had previously seen smoking a rolled cigarette, which he accept gladly and proceeded to smoke. Women also often eat after the men in the household, and in a different room, such as the kitchen.

At some point while in the villages, our tour guide asked my little sister if she thought carrying a pot on your head--as the Indians do--was hard. When she responded that it looks easy, well, she was just asking for it. You can see pictures of her effort in the album. In fact, though, this practice becomes so natural for Indians (men and women alike), that you see it in the cities, and with some strange items. At different times we saw people carrying on their heads huge bushels of wheat or grass, large plastic bottles of water, and even purses--no hands, just walking down the street. Really impressive. Our tour guide also helped us bargain for some traditional Indian clothing to dress my sister up in, hence the beautifal blue dress she is wearing in the photos.

Back in Mumbai, another thing you notice is the actual lack of Western tourists. Most tourists are actually Indian tourists coming from other parts of India. Unsurprisingly, we get stared at a fair amount. I think, though, my little sister actually got more strange looks than I did, for obviously looking Southern Indian, but being with and dressing like Westerners. For me, I didn't feel like I get any stranger looks than what I get here in Larissa.

We also went on a market tour, where you tour some local street markets, as well as the "slum tour," again with Reality Tours. On the slum tour, you are guided through one of Mumbai's largest slums, housing over 1 million people in only 1.75 sq km. You see the residential part of the slum, such as houses and schools (some of which are supported in part by Reality Tours itself), as well as the commercial parts, where the large amount of production takes place in areas such as plastics, leather, and linens. Really, very, very interesting. And the block printers we saw working gave us little flower block prints on our tshirts. Some boys also taught my sister how to play with the tops they had, and our tour guide bargained with one of them to buy his top for 20 rupees and gave it to my sister. Not sure where she'll find somewhere to play with it, though, as my family lives on a gravel road back in the States ;)

We spent the rest of our time seeing sights in Mumbai, eating great food at restaurants, and taking advantage of low prices in various markets. Most restaraunts serve Indian food in addition to food from about five other cultures, resulting in very large selections. For shopping, notably my mom purchased a sitar for the equivalent of about $120. Amongst other things, I brought home a nice Indian rug, some wall-hangings, Indian spices, and some cloth bags and scarves.

Other notes: People wear very bright colors, almost exclusively traditional (non-Western) style clothing such as saris, often don't wear shoes, and never wear sunglasses despite the blaring sun. There are lots of trees (and LARGE trees) and other green throughout the city, I suppose a result of the heavy summer rain. In the movie theatres before the previews you stand for the national anthem. It rained heavily only one day, and drizzled about two other times.

A thing that I still haven't figured out yet is that some Indians seem to speak in English, such as a father speaking to his small son, or two teenagers chatting. I'm not sure if this is because English serves as a lingua franca when two Indians don't speak the same language, or perhaps this is a sign of high class standing. If anyone has insight on this, I'm still very curious, and regret not having a chance to ask our tour guides.

Overall the trip was very rewarding. And because we had 9 days in essentially the same city, it was relaxing as well, because we were not restricted to tight schedules or large amounts of traveling. The culture of India is very rich and unique, which is refreshing, and the food excellent. Not to mention I now know how to say hi, bye, yes, no, and thank you in two more languages (Hindi and Marathi). I would definitely consider going again for a vacation, though probably to a different city so I could see some more of the massive country.