I flew in to Mumbai at around 9pm and got a cab to my hostel, it took a while to get there because it is not in a well known area and has only a tiny sign which it seems locals have not spotted. On the drive in, I felt more relaxed than I had the entire trip. The sprawling slums and absolute immensity of the city accentuated the foreignness of my surroundings in a way that large cities and vast wildernesses had not. My hostel itself is in a very poor area though not a shantytown or tent city. Regardless there are homeless families every 20 or 30 feet. Mumbai is enormous, according to a quick internet search it is the third largest city in the world, topped by only Mexico City and Tokyo. It has a larger feel than Tokyo, my guess would be that the city limits do not include as many population centers.
The next morning I woke up around 6:30 and wandered the neighborhood surrounding my hostel looking for food and internet. I was unsuccessful at internet, but found a large fruit, vegetable, spice and chicken market. The smells were incredible, I am repulsed by how chickens smell but it was incredible to have my nose stimulated with different strong scents every 20 feet. By 9 I had caught a bus into downtown Mumbai and I wandered through the colonial buildings, past a sports academy and to the beach. The sports academy was a big green field where people were playing volleyball, soccer, and cricket. I went in and sat down with the guys playing cricket hoping they would let me pitch, hit, or at least throw to show of my arm and maybe get to play. No luck, they were very involved in their game and were not willing to let the foreigner experiment. The beach was disgusting. I had envisioned going swimming, but the first beach was blanketed with trash. The only people on it were searching for either valuables or recyclables, which can be sold for money. The larger beach I went to had a lot of trash floating in the water and I noticed that though there were quite a few people there, no one was swimming. I decided to save my swim for a different part of the sea. Until then I hadn't decided where I would go after Mumbai, I had gotten different suggestions from travelers.
I started walking towards some tall business type buildings away from the beach and again saw a large truck full of young guys being really loud and obviously having a great time. I waved, they waved back and yelled some stuff. I kept walking and noticed they had stopped and were all being pelted with water balloons from an apartment complex and a water truck had a huge hose spraying them. I took a picture to ask the guy at the hostel what the deal was- if they were army, youth corps, volunteers of some sort. They loved that I took a picture of them and demanded that I take another. Then they asked if I wanted to ride with them and if I wanted to wear the yellow t-shirt they were all wearing. My whole trip has been rather planless so I went with them. They loved it and every one of them (about 90 per team, according to the papers, and all in this one truck) wanted to practice their English. They asked if I had anywhere to go that day, I said no, so they took me around until 11pm that night.
Apparently it was the celebration of Lord Krishna's birthday. Lord Krishna enjoyed eating gourds so in remembrance of the god each neighborhood strings up a decorated and painted clay pot full of dyed water about 30-40 feet off of street level. Each team drives around all day forming human pyramids so that a person can climb to the top and smash the container, covering all below with dyed water. The yellow shirt they gave me is now purple, blue and red spotted. As I am not experienced in building pyramids, I was in the throng of people surrounding the pyramid who catch the people when they fall. This happened more than half the time though not always the person at the top. The largest pyramid built by the group I was in was the height of 7 people standing. Immediately after the guy broke the pot, the tower collapsed and he was left hanging onto the rope attached to the pot. Apparently this is not uncommon because he was not fazed by hanging onto a thin rope, suspended 100 feet inbetween two buildings 40 feet off the ground. He just curled into a fetal position, put his back to the ground and let go.
At each of the neighborhoods there was a DJ playing loud Indian music and while waiting for their turn to build the tower the teams dance. I was a hot commodity and everyone wanted to dance with me and have me imitate their dance moves. Here, all the men dance with one another and hold hands in the street. It is the same way in Egypt and Jordan, I would like to know more about a possible relation between this, which I do not see in Europe and the US, and conservative cultures which frown upon much mingling between sexes. The female/male disparities are not as pronounced here, though women are predominantly not the workers where I have been, are not the ones socializing in cafes, did not take place in this festival (and were not allowed into the arenas where the main celebrations were), and were not on the public transit I have ridden.
I always get cautious when I am talking about intercultural differences because there is so much more at play than meets the eye. I also am very critical when I hear other people in these types of discussions. Usually I get so critical because there needs to be a specific "disclaimer" that recognizes the boundaries of what one person can know-from experience as well as from study. Additionally, I think the most important aspect of something like varying positions of women in different societies is recognizing similarities, common threads. This is extremely important when making any kind of judgment or opinion, what I mean is, if someone is going to talk about sex inequality in India or Egypt, for example, I think there must be questioning of problems across the world, especially places where people may not see the inequality. This is parallel to something I have experienced when people ask my opinion on "terrorism." Great quote: "war is the terrorism of the rich, whilst terrorism is the war of the poor." The power to define things like terrorism and equality is the power to define right and wrong. From the infinitisemal speck of what I have seen of Indian culture and the miniscule pebble of what I know about Egypt, I see threads of what I have seen in the US. The problem is the same, steps have been made, bigger in some places than others.
Tangent.....sometimes I do not quite know how I get from point A to B in my head. Back to the festivities. I was a hot commodity for talking and dancing. Everyone wanted to practice their English, shake my hand, dance with me, be my best friend among the others. I am quite positive that I shook 2 thousand hands on the day. The vying for my attention was flattering at first but by 8 that evening it had started to wear on me, they were telling me that other people were liars, would get me lost (wouldn't have been hard!), and were telling me to say bad stuff. I had been saying things all day, I really didnt see much harm in it as it was only to other teammates (and of course I had no clue what I was saying). I had been leading the team cheers which I was sure were OK, to the delight of onlookers and the team. But after some people looked insulted at something I was asked to say, I told them no more. They begged, told me it meant all sorts of not bad things. Two guys were begging me really incessantly to say what another told me "means f*** your mother, they are lying to you, come with me I want ask you to say bad things." So I refused to say anything the rest of the night and one of the guys seemed really hurt, he had taken pride earlier in leadign me around.
I don't want it to sound like I am infantilizing these guys. They were mostly 18-30 and normal people it seemed, but when they were dealing with me it felt like I was the god, not Krishna. They all wanted to be the one buying me food, ask me if I needed water, lead me to the place where we would build, etc. It was very flattering, though because of language barriers they really knew very little about me and I very little about them. To me, this means that largely I received this treatment because of my skin color and nationality. Two things which certainly do matter in this world but their utility is usually obscured.
As I said, I paraded around Mumbai all day with these guys, acting as mascot and body catcher. I can't imagine a better way to really see the city. For the final capping ceremony to the festival, we went to a big courtyard of some relatively expensive-looking apartments. There were 8 huge hoses spraying water over around 2 maybe 3 thousand people inside a fenced off area. There was a big stage with lots of important looking people, loud music, and the balconies were covered with onlooking women and children. Outside the fences were non-participating men, women and children. The whole courtyard like other places was ankle deep mud. I danced with the guys on the team, we and other teams formed pyramids then fireworks started going off, the music stopped and a man started talking. A couple guys grabbed me and told me I had to go onstage. I was mildly embarrassed, but not shocked as I had been pretty much anesthetized to shock by all the events of the day. So, I went on the stage, shook hands with a bunch of guys in suits, smiled for a bunch of cameras, listened to them all thank me for coming, of course thanked them back, and I think I was on a film camera though I was a bit frantic and dont remember everything. Then the guy who I take to be in charge of things gave me a bouquet of roses and the microphone. I yelled "bawn badyen!" into it which I think is a cheer for Lord Krishna and the crowd responded "beli kitay!" I was pretty sure that's not an insult and the massive amount of people didnt take it as one. Surreal.
While I was leaving I started handing out the roses to little kids and shaking hands. I was told to stop because the roses are an honor and were for me. The little kids loved them though, they actually understand the festival and why I was given flowers. So the dump truck took me back to close to my hostel, I got a ride on a motor bike another part of the way, and then the guys refused to let me pay for my own cab the rest of the way.
I have so many more thoughts about the night, I would love to have people to talk about it with. I think the reason I am writing so much is because this way I am sharing it with other people in a small way. It would be nice to experience this with others who know me and who I know. It can be exciting meeting new people every day but there is a lot missing from being around people who know you.
The next morning I set off to catch a train south to Goa, a beach town that is flooded with tourists in winter months. Not so many here right now though it is still very pretty. Small town, green with palm trees, sandy beach, beautiful water. Fruit everywhere and it is very very cheap. Today I bought 5 bananas for about 20 cents and a big rice/vegetable meal for 1 dollar. The train ride took 13 hours, I got in around 2:30 am, and wandered around the town with two Danish guys looking for a hostel. Finally after 4 we found a place that was "open," which meant the receptionist woke up when we knocked on the door. Today I went for a long run on the beach, explored the town, finished a book, and took my one set of clothes to the laundry. My clothes did not make it to Mumbai by when I left, so the pair of clothes I have worn the whole trip smelled awful. Especially after the muddy and sweaty festival. Tomorrow I will do some more exploring then take a sleeper train back for two more days in Mumbai. Then a flight to Istanbul and from there to Damascus by bus and train.
I hope this letter is not riddled with mistakes, I have to go catch a sunset. I am thinking about home and probably all of you who are reading this. Send me emails, let me know how your lives are going!
Kit
