Part 2 - January 4, 2011 (Tuesday) to January 7 (Friday)

We landed in Mumbai at 2 in the morning on January 6, after 23 hours of traveling. Awake for over 30 hours, but eager to experience India, we were greeted by non-stop Christmas music over the public address system. Where is the anti-globalism movement when you need it?

Max was at a concert in Ahmedabad, 500 kilometers north, so we took a taxi to the hotel. The driver was a Sikh, who, appropriately, went off seeking our hotel, stopping several times to ask directions. The place was cheap and funky but with a good bed and Jerri and I promptly crashed.

The next morning, we saw Max and Mumbai in daylight. Looking out the window from the 'Only Parathas' restaurant next door, we saw a bustling and modern city with crowded streets and heard the incessant honking of horns. Reminders that this really wasn't Chicago appeared in the form of a painfully tiny homeless girl running after her brother, and in an ox-cart that was slowly weaving its way through non-stop traffic.

Mumbai traffic (JZ)

Max hailed one of the three-wheeled rickshaws that are to India what scooters are to Italy and took us to his apartment. We walked through the small, winding streets, of the Chum Village neighborhood in Khar and up 3 flights. This is a Christian area, with creche's and religious statues around every corner, but with a distinctive Indian slant. It's a bit disconcerting.

Max's Alley (JZ)

Creche, Chum Village (JZ)

We next took a second class train from Bandra Station to Church Gate station. Max explained that it was possible to take the train only during a few hours of the day. Otherwise, the crowding made it impossible to breathe. In the early days of his living here, he got stuck in the crowd and couldn't get off the train for 30 miles beyond his station. This makes rush-hour in the NYC subway seem comfortable.

We walked to the Keneseth Eliyahoo Synagogue, built in 1884, a remnant of the old Jewish community, where I spent some time photographing, then saw the Gateway to India, across from the Taj Hotel, where the 2008 terrorist attacks took place. Many more people were killed than the “official” records indicate.

Keneseth Eliyahoo Synagogue (AT)

We were approached several times by beggars: a woman who slipped a flower wreath onto my arm while I was photographing the Gateway; a small girl wanting me to buy her a coconut milk. A woman sat with her child whose head was bandaged, with a clearly fake blood spot on the bandage. It challenges all your beliefs. If you ignore them, the recommended strategy, you feel awful (at least initially.) If you respond you feel awful as well. I had a hard time with the girl motioning for me to buy her coconut milk. In future, we may opt for providing food rather than money. That way, we know it at least goes to the person standing in front of us.

The next morning, we met at an internet cafe whose connection to the web was initially down. Neither Max nor our hotel have access, hence the sporadic nature of this blog. India may have a reputation as an IT powerhouse, but as we're seeing, it straddles two worlds. Maybe more. Nothing is predictable and everything takes more time than you would think.