Food Markets in Mumbai

What a treat to have a tour of the markets with a local resident foodie who can cook at home in the traditional way. The produce on the street is brought in to the city by the farmers and sold to the vendors. One interesting thing I noted was that the sellers were women in Jaipur and men in Mumbai.

We told Kiran that we wanted to buy spices, see the food markets, and I had a few small items we were interested in purchasing. The spice stand where she shops is in the fish market. We arrived there late in the morning and most of the fish was already purchased. Apparently, the fishwives are a hard bunch who bargain for top prices for the fish their husbands catch each morning. They also don't like having their picture taken. 

Across from the Spice stand was the live animal vendor. Ugh! I only glanced and wanted to rattle the cages of those vendors! The chickens crammed into their cages were a sorry lot. Oh dear, how I miss the lively action of our dear chickens, now living in Berkeley with Farmer Julie! These poor babies were listless, dirty, pecked, and some couldn't even hold up their heads. Yes, I saw all that in only a second or two. Then we heard them being killed -- right there behind us. Oh my, what a sound. All the butchered chickens I have seen in the past few weeks were sitting out on filthy counters, in the noonday sun, with flies landing frequently while the vendor waved a non-committal hand to shoo them away. Ugh. No wonder so many Indians and Nepalese are vegetarians.

Our shopping brought us a new piece of information. Indian sales people give importance to the first sale of the day. They will bargain more than usual to make the sale to the first person who stops by. That piece of information served us well for at least two purchases.

Here's one of the treasures we purchased. We were inspired by Chef Gupta who had his spices in those little containers because most dishes require several (if not all) the spices in this little tray. His was plastic and that was what I thought I would buy. However, Kiran suggested a stainless steel tray. Imagine paying only $5 for this beauty. Kiran bargained for us and had them dig for the best kind in a shop full of so many things I would buy if I didn't have to cart it all home! This one with an inner lid and outer lid (just like the tea canisters I have at home).

The peak of this tour was that Deepa, the remarkable woman who started India Magic, joined us for lunch! We were totally honored to get to know her better. Throughout all out tours, we tried foods we never had heard of or wouldn't have dared sample because we were with guides who knew the cuisine and the safety of the food. For this lunch, we also saw two friends interacting in a way we normally wouldn't have seen so close up. They are middle-class women who have young adult children, have lived with their inlaws (typical for Indian woman) and who have at least one servant. What a different life they have. I loved hearing them chat!

After lunch, we stopped by the Mumbai Magic office for a "washroom" break before going to the slums. That was another wonderful opportunity to see a real business office and have even more time to talk with Deepa. I liked her from the moment I first discovered her recommendation on Trip Advisor and started reading her blog and discovering what magic was before us on our trip to India!

She plans brilliant tours. She trains and employs students and young people who might not have a chance in the world of business and we have benefited from all of her expertise. We have done 18 tours during this trip. Some by plane, some by rickshaw. Deepa was responsible for planning more than half of them. 

We have been totally blessed! 

Visiting the Himalayas

When we arrived in Kathmandu, we had a hassle at the airport. We thought that it was our fault, or maybe the Indian embassy's fault. Many months ago, Jim started getting visas for the countries we would visit. Three of the four countries we were visiting required a visa for American tourists. Since each country has it's immigration requirements and needed our passports in order to insert their visa, it was a tedious process of sending our pictures, applications and passports with return FedEx packages. It turned out that India had our passports so long, we didn't have time to get visas for Nepal. Luckily, Nepal lets you get a visa when you enter the country. That seemed to be the problem at the Kathmandu airport long on lines, short on immigration personnel. So many people had not purchased their visa that we were in that line for way over an hour. By some quirk of choosing the wrong line, our bags were the only ones left. At least they were still there, two red bags sitting by the conveyor belt! 

We were really the last two out of the airport of the 1000 or more who all arrived at the same time. As it turned out, we are thankful about the visa snafu. At least it allowed us to meet Pramod. He seemed a bit pushy, but helpful. He jumped into our cab with us and convinced us that he was an upstanding, industrious young man who could provide excellent service creating the tours we would be interested in. He gave us ample opportunity to check him and the prices he was quoting us on the internet. He was so right! He knew what we needed to do while we were in Nepal.

Our trip to Kathmandu was far greater than we expected. Between the Mountain Viewing from a small plane to the retreat in the mountains near Namo Buddha Stupa, and our resort in the forest, we couldn't have asked for more. We've already written about the mountain viewing and still think of it frequently almost a week later. What we didn't write about is the fabulous retreat we had at Namo Buddha resort.

There are not enough superlatives to describe this place. First, realize that we are thrifty folk and yet Pramod convinced us that we needed to spend money on a room while we already had a paid for room in Kathmandu! It turned into a bit of an adventure because he also convinced two guys from Singapore to take this trip. So two cars were going to Namo Buddha, which meant that Pramod could bring his whole family too -- with free transportation! I'm sure there was also a perk from the owner of the mountain resort, but the arrangement paid off for all of us.

Every place at the retreat had a panorama of the Himalayas. We could even see them from our bed! For some reason, we got the best cottage. Two stories, two bedrooms with a sleeping loft! 

 

We never really did get the name of the wife but she and "Babu" and Shascha quickly became good friends of ours. We were adopted as the American grandparents. At one point Shascha disappeared into a little shop and returned with a gift for me! She also took my arm to go up the many stairs at the temple because she saw that I was hanging onto the banisters when there were any. (Knees!) At one point we were passing a man carrying a load of bricks uphill. (Sorry I was trying to be discreet and didn't get a good shot.) She said, "He's poor. When I have enough money, I will give it to the poor and they won't have to carry bricks anymore." Pretty generous for an 11 year old. She was stumped though when I asked her how the bricks would get to the top of the hill if there were no poor people to carry them? This is a socio-political question for the whole world, isn't it?

While it was very cold in Kathmandu, it was even colder at Namo Buddha but they have very efficient heaters in the rooms and built a lovely fire where we sat with beer and wine and watched the sun set on the mountains. After sunset, we retired to the dining room where we had the best soup I've ever had and the lovely dinner you see here.

What a place! I would love to stay there for a month to discover who I am or write a book or something inspiring! This place has replaced Esalen as my "happy place!"

Yes, we loved out time in Kathmandu. Our forest resort was also lovely. The food was great and inexpensive. The people were generous and helpful. And the scenery was spectacular. While we never thought we'd want to return to asia, we are now rethinking that idea.

Alas, we had to leave. It was time for the last leg of the journey. We were flying to Mumbai for a few days as our trip-of-a-lifetime ends. The literature (and the locals) said get to the airport 3 hours early, which seemed ridiculous for a 3 hour flight. However, once there, we understood why. We were searched, X-rayed, patted down, and had our passports and boarding passes checked at least 15 times! Once we exited from the bus that took us to the plane on the tarmac, they checked our luggage one more time -- actually opened each bag and went through it! Surely no terrorists have ever left Nepal by plane!

We had one more clear view of the mountain peaks as we fly away from Kathmandu. I've always loved mountains, but had no idea I would be so enchanted with these. Breathtaking!

Luckily, the airport in Mumbai is just as efficient as the one in Delhi. We were out of there in seconds because we've gotten smart and look around for shorter lines. Even so, our luggage was x-rayed one more time as we went through customs. My undies are probably radioactive by now!

Remember Slumdog Millionaire?

Who would take a tour of a slum? The description of the Dharavi slum  by Mumbai Magic sounded intriguing. So, after a long "Foodie" tour, we were off to meet Faiz and tour the slum that was the setting for Slumdog Millionaire.

I thought I knew what to expect. I've read about slums in fiction and non-fiction or reports from NGOs that I've contributed to, but Dharavi was not what I imagined. Not by a long shot. Faiz asked us not to take photos while inside the slum, but we could take a few from above as we crossed the railroad tracks. First of all, there are a few real streets, not just a warren of passages between hovels. My very first impression is that the people looked far better than poor people we've seen in other cities, especially in Old Delhi. Their clothes were clean, mostly western on the men and Muslim attire for the women (Black robes, and head scarves that cover their mouths). Their food stalls were amply filled with fresh vegetablesthat looked appetizing. The shops have the usual soft drinks and what looks like junk food. There were also shoes, bags, scarves, plastic goods -- pretty much a typical assortment of things a family might want.

Secondly, there are four major industries in the slum: recycling, textiles, leather goods, and pottery. People came from villages, staked out a hovel, and the men (I saw only young men) learn a skill. OSHA folk would have a heart attack over the conditions, but what we saw was resourceful. 

The recycling was particularly interesting. In the US, we put our bottles and cans in a bin and someone pickes them up and the rest is a mystery. Actually, similar things happen in Mumbai, but they debris from all of that ends up in Dhravi. Things are actually reused. Like the metal paint cans and oil cans. Those are washed, dried, banged into a useable shape and bundled to be refilled. Plastic is shredded and ground into pellets that end up being processed into more plastic goods. But it's all plasitc, from those flimsy water cups to toys and TV cases. The conditions where this happens is deplorable and I wonder just how exploited thes people are? Who owns the machinery?It's made in the slum. We saw the machine shop. These young men have skills that could be the path to success in the outside world, but in fact, they are said to not want to leave. After all they can make as much as 500 rupees a day ($10)  just around the corner from where they live.

I heard this over and over from Faiz. The people like where they are. It's familiar. They have a home, albeit at 200 sq.ft home that might be shared with 10 people, but it's still home. Many homes have several levels -- so the 200 sq.ft footprint might expand to 600 sq.ft.  There is no rent, but there are taxes. And there are the narrow passages I expected. Dark warrens with a covered trough running down the middle. Some people have a refrigerator and/or a tiny washing machine. Many have TVs, most have cell phones. A few have a toilet. Generally, there is one toilet for 450 people. Many prefer to urinate and defecate outside. "Why waste the water" for a flush toilet? Really.

There are also high rises where the hovels have been knocked down and tiny apartments given to those who have lived in the slum for 10 years. However, that transition is not wanted for the most part.  They don't want a broken elevator to the 8th floor when they had a perfectly acceptable space on the ground where they could create a second or third floor and rent to others!

The other industries were equally interesting, especially the potters who settled in the area first and definitely do not want to leave. However, their presence is not wanted in the center of this metropolitan city because the smoke from the kilns is very polluting. Many of the potters have rather large home/workspace/shops -- bigger than my home in Grass Valley. But they still live cheek-to-jowl with each other in unhealthy sanitation and sporadic water and electric delivery. Still they do not want to leave.

Faiz was very matter-of-fact about the things he said, and he spoke with such authority that I asked if he had grown up in the slum. He had, and he still lived there, I think, even though he is attending school outside and working for Mumbia Magic tours, both in the office and leading tours. I suspect his family lives there. It is his home.

As I said, this is not what I expected!

Culture, Religion, Politics in India

Our final tour of the trip, to the Kanheri caves and later to the ritzy Mumbai neighborhood of Bandra, was led by a very well educated and worldly woman with a lot of opinions about the issues of the day. In addition to getting more knowledge, we got exposed to an informed point of view about all that we have seen since we landed in Delhi over two weeks ago.

The U. S. is a distant second to India in the complexity of social interactions as governed by the myriad influences within the country. Dozens of different languages, all the major religions, and many strata in each category make for a most complicated set of rules of behavior.

A few days before our arrival in Delhi, a young girl (now known by the pseudonym of Nirbhaya) was raped and tortured on a bus and left on the road with her male companion semi-conscious, naked, and bleeding. For two hours pedestrians and vehicles would stop and look but proceed on their way. Finally someone called the police, who spent another half hour discussing in whose jurisdiction the "incident" occurred.

The story took over front page coverage in the Asian papers, displacing the shooting in Connecticut. Students in Delhi took to the streets. We saw them at India Gate near the president's house chanting and carrying signs of protest. Three weeks later it is still the main topic of discussion, despite the earthshaking news that the greatest cricket player in Indian history retired from One Day International competition during the tumult.

The head of police blamed modern society and urban attitudes, but the stats show that 75% of the reported rapes are in rural areas. The editorial pages are filled with stories about the status and treatment of women. The role of religion and culture are weighed and considered at length.

In our capacity as tourists, Jacquie and I are just learning the basics of the history of the subcontinent, mostly from our excellent guides. Four major religions started in India - first was Hinduism, then the nearly simultaneous offshoots Jainism and Buddhism. More recently, Sikhism has become the fastest growing religion in the world. Oddly, some of its greatest leaders were Muslim. Also, a large Portuguese population took over western India and brought in Christianity. (Remember the Pope's Line of Demarcation? Portugal "got" Asia, Africa, and Brazil while Spain "got" the rest of the western hemisphere. Sorry everyone else!)

Hinduism remains the most popular in India. As our Mumbai guide Perin told us, Buddhism is too ascetic for them. They want lots of gods, flowers, and ritual. Buddhism spread to the rest of Asia and Jainism holds steady here due to its adherents' good business sense. The Sikhs practice equal treatment of women and are very generous to the poor. Every Sikh temple in the big cities runs a vast soup kitchen where anyone may come in and have a meal. I've never seen such huge pots of food being prepared.

The proletarian appeal of Sikhism probably explains its popularity, and also explains why other Indians look down on them as lower class. The one joke our Jaipur guide told us was a racial slur on the Sikhs. (It was also funny.) Despite the personal prejudices, India prides itself on religious tolerance. Some past rulers have alternately levied taxes on unbelievers (Muslim kings vs. infidels), or tried to reinstate Hinduism as the national religion, but the most revered kings like Akbar and Shah Jahan encouraged freedom of belief and equal treatment under the law.

Perin is Parsi. Her people came to India from Iran and have maintained a strong community in Mumbai, even though the dogma seems to ensure their demise. It is not possible to convert to Parsi. If a Parsi man marries a non-Parsi woman. only the children are recognized as Parsi. If a Parsi woman marries and non-Parsi man, not only is her family excluded, so is she. Not a lot of growth potential there.

How does a nation govern itself fairly and allow so many cultures and belief systems to thrive? Where does the law step in if women are being oppressed or allowed to be abused? What kind of society raises a fifteen-year-old boy to brutalize a young woman with such abandon? Of the six assailants in the Delhi rape, the youngest was the most violent and may go unpunished due to his age.

A few days ago "Nirbhaya" was flown from Delhi to a Singapore hospital for special  medical care. She died there two days later. Gandhi just made another turn in the smoke of his pyre.

The Dinner Prize

It's very exciting to win a prize! People commented what a great place the Shangri-La Hotel is...but it is far from this place. We got the resort car to take us to the hotel and would need a taxi to bring us home.

Well, the place is nice. The fancy dinner was really a buffet and had much the same food as we've been eating for two weeks -- good, but we're getting tired of curries! Jim has pronounced all chocolate desserts in Asia as dry and uninteresting and last night left half of the tiny sliver on his plate! (Imagine that!)

OK, that was an OK dinner and the wait staff was very friendly (we were the only people in the restaurant at 7:30). Then it was time to get the taxi home. Gokarna (our resort) has a little card with a map and direction in Nepalese. So the hotel brings a cab in and tells them where we want to go and elicits a price which was only a little more than we expected. Since we knew Gokarna is off the beaten path, we had them ask several times if the driver really knew where it was and showed the map. All is good! Great.

The driver takes off in the opposite direction from the way we arrived, but since the resort car was dropping someone off, that wasn't too far-fetched. After 15 minutes through an entirely new part of town we stop and the driver says what sounds like "Gokarna." We say no and gave him the little map. He had great trouble reading the instructions (the English side was practically unintelligible), he grunted and took off saying the price will be double. We say NO, we will give you 1000 rupees. He drives on. Only a few minutes later, I start recognizing things (in the dark with all the shops closed, it was really hard to tell). Then the driver asks , "You know?" Jim said "Maybe." The driver calls the hotel and in fact we were only a half mile away.

Then came the moment of reckoning. The driver started arguing, but he saw Jim counting out his money. We gave him everything we had 1400 rupees and walked away! 

I suspected this would happen sometime and it does make a story (sort of like the bear eating all our camping food) and it wasn't that we were captured by white slavers, so we chalked it up to experience. The evening cost us more than if we had had the best meal at the resort!