Mumbai

The population of metropolitan Mumbai is 23 million people. Mumbai was originally composed of seven islands, but a major reclamation occurred in 1845, which transformed Mumbai into a single island and a major seaport on the Arabian Sea. It is now the financial, commercial and entertainment capital of India.
The process of getting off the ship and onto the tour bus was quite something. The easiest part was presenting our room key to the ship’s security staff to let them know that we were leaving the ship. After that we needed to go through customs, show them our India Visa, plus our original passport, plus a photocopy of our passport so they could see that the pictures matched. When we finally boarded the bus and reached the final control gate, an official boarded the bus, and we all had to hold up a copy of our visa again, so he could be sure that we all had the necessary clearance.

The initial impressions of Mumbai were pretty well what we expected., starting with a very messy construction site beside the pier. Unbelievable traffic jams, thousands of taxis (little black and orange Hyundai Santos), an equal number of scooters, and thousands of people walking and sitting along the side of the streets and sidewalks……. and the litter! food packages, bottles, garbage, plastic bags human and dog feces everywhere! It seems they have little regard for waste. It is hard to explain because the problem is so complicated. Half of the population of Mumbai is considered to be slums. Visually (and confirmed by internet research) there are no clean, let alone many public toilettes, and nowhere to put garbage. So what else can the people do? Notwithstanding that, they are a very clean people clothing wise and inside houses, (partly because they throw the filth into the streets and parks.) One critic presented this argument to justify the situation. “All of Mumbai is a shit-hole, so what difference do a few more piddling drops make? Also, where are the clean, airy public restrooms that our civic authorities are supposed to provide? Women, in particular, are hard-pressed in this matter.”
It should be said that our tours in Mumbai protected us from the worst of the above-described filth. But what we did see was litter and extreme disregard for cleanliness and the environment everywhere. Add to that, all the major buildings, except for the most recent, looked dingy perhaps because of the soot from air pollution. We drove past hundreds and hundreds of rag tag, small shops with corrugated sheets of metal for the roof held in place by rocks and chunks of concrete. But it is their way of doing commerce, and it works. It’s hard to imagine how they can make a living from these little booths, and for those who are selling food, how they manage the freshness, so people don’t get sick.

We knew or suspected all of that but it did not deter us from wanting to experience the conditions and the complexity of the problem. It is an eye opening experience, that emphasizes how lucky we are to live in Canada!

They are a happy people, not too bothersome when trying to sell souvenirs, and given the dirty look of the surroundings, as said previously, they are remarkably clean and colorful.

Today’s tour was a “Tour of the Highlights of Mumbai. “

Our first stop was the Krishna Consciousness Temple. People come and go to pray, and it seems to take various forms. Some prostrate themselves on the cold marble floors, others seem to sit on benches and on the floor along walls, some swinging back-and-forth. I tried to look up the Krishna beliefs, and I think even Wikipedia is confused about that.

Our next stop was the Dhobi Ghat, claimed to be the world's largest outdoor laundry with row upon row of open-air concrete wash pens, each fitted with its own flogging stone. For 18 to 20 hours each day, over 7,000 workers flog, scrub, dye, and bleach 100,000 garments per day dry them on ropes, neatly press them and somehow get the garments back to the owners. We could only imagine what happens if it rains.

We visited Mani Bhavan, a museum and historical building dedicated to the life of Gandhi, Mani Bhavan was the focal point of Gandhi's political activities in Mumbai between 1917 and 1934. The museum displays hundreds of letters and pictures of Gandhi with world leaders during his lifetime including quite a diplomatic letter he sent to Hitler, dated July 23rd, 1939, before the start of World War 11 which in part, reads,” it is quite clear that you are today the one person in the world who can prevent a war which may reduce humanity to the savage state. Must you pay that price for an object however worthy it may appear to you to be? Will you listen to the appeal of one who has deliberately shunned the method of war not without considerable success?”
Sadly, the British intercepted the letter and it never reached Hitler.

For the last stop of the day, we visited Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya Museum which documents the history of India from prehistoric to modern times. Just pronouncing its name takes up a bit of history!

Along the way to our various stops, given the filth we had been seeing, we were surprised to see enormous tracks of green land called gymkhanas, that are used for sports, primarily cricket. There is even a golf course and a racehorse track in the middle of the city.

It was a long day, and we didn’t get back to the ship until about 2 o’clock. Don was tired and had a nap. We had originally signed up for a 7:30pm harbour cruise to see the lights of Mumbai, but Lee did the sensible thing and turned our tickets in. It was just going to be too much. We rallied and had a lovely dinner in the Compass Rose. A word about the table settings in Compass Rose. The tables are always set with the most beautiful charger plates by Versace. If the girls purses were larger, I think some would have gone missing. Don remembered a great Dover Sole experience on our last trip on the Navigator, ordered it again and marveled for the second time how quickly and easily our server deboned the fish.
Off to see the flutist, Suzanne Godfrey again, and so to bed.Read more