Notes on Mumbai
This past month I traveled to Mumbai, and while I anticipated the trip to be fun and engaging, I didn’t account for the sheer difference in daily living that awaited in the 4th most populous city in the world.
One of many Mumbai skylines.
More than 20 million people live in India’s commercial and entertainment capital: Put another way roughly 3 times the people of New York live in half the space. Yet almost 85% of its inhabitants live in slums or chawls, dilapidated tenements built to handle migrant cotton workers.
A typical high-rise chawl. Only 10-15% of Mumbai lives in a traditional apartment.
The effect is jarring: clean-cut skyscrapers face run-down housing blocks, and cardboard shacks line pothole-ridden roads.
Mumbai, the city of extremes.
Even more disturbing was how quickly I adjusted to the grimy contrast. What they don’t warn you about visiting Mumbai is the intensity. Every sense is magnified 20 million times over — the smells, sights, sounds, texture — each beat adding to the over-stimulated cacophony of human life.
And at each turn beauty awaited. Our third night in town we looked up local concerts that evening, and set out for an unknown destination by taxi. Slum-nice-slum melded into one blurry landscape, and we arrived at a mostly-clean building front.
Stepping outside, I sauntered into the lit foyer, which led into a dark cavernous room. I looked inside, and was greeted by 20-30 men turning and rising to see who was at the door.
Several hurried words later, and my friend and I walked around to the side of the building where the concert was held. We arrived just in time for intermission — coffee with chutney sandwiches — and immersed ourselves in traditional Indian song.
The actual music hall was a dusty jade theater faded from bygone echoes of drama, song and dance.
The Music India ensemble.
Each piece reminded me of church services I attended as a child: A song, a sermon, and then a conversation with the audience. The effect was markedly intimate on a diverse crowd.
Although the entire show was in Hindi, the message transmitted loud and clear: We are India. Together, we create the community we want to live in, we call forth the culture that we want to exist.
My friend and I walked backstage to chat with the troupe, and share our thanks. They were quite surprised to find two foreigners at their monthly concert.
Tabla player from Music India.
…
“So Patricia, how was India?”
Incredibly frustrating. A gleaming Aston Martin zooms past children stretched out on pavement, holding onto the promise of reprieve from a fitful’s night sleep. Gaunt animals pick through the trash-ridden streets for the next morsel.
Agonizingly beautiful: Ornate celebration of life in every direction. Elaborate paints and decor on goods carriers. Groups of laughing children pushing their little brother on a rusted tricycle. A startling quiet standing out on my balcony at night, watching bonfires roar atop distant towers.
It’s a beauty at once electrifying and calming, akin to the soft hint a wave gives of the real power beneath.
Photo credits to self and Lawrence Levine