"One week isn’t enough” was a phrase I became extremely familiar with while I prepared to visit India. I didn’t expect to see the whole continent, but rather to see Mumbai and Varanasi. I already had plans to revisit the country to explore the Himilayan region in December. Devin, one of my closest friends from home greeted me at the Mumbai airport. It had been more than a year since I had seen him last in Chicago. He had been living on and off in India and America for a few years now and had a cab waiting to take us to Colaba. It was really late and Mumbai was already asleep, so after we woke up the hostel owner we went straight to bed.
We started our day at Leopold Cafe, a spot made famous by the novel Shantaram. I had become familiar with the bar and restaurant by watching a documentary on the terror bombings in 2008. The bullet holes in the walls were still visible, but business was booming despite the massacre 2 years ago. All of the major attack sites were walking distance from our hotel. The Taj was directly across the street. We drank our first day away in the upstairs bar at Leopold. We conversed about culture, politics, sports, traveling and even football hooliganism with an Englishman named Aiden who footed our 200$ tab at the end of the night.
In the few days we spent in Mumbai, we saw a great deal of the city. The Gateway, Haji Ali Mosque, Bizzares, and Collaba were all buzzing with scammers and beggers. At one point a man followed us for a really long time offering drinks with “swell guys.” “It’s all above board” he claimed. “Last night we had 3 boys going for the world record!” I still don’t know what he wanted from us. At one point he told us that we could pay him to come drink with us. We couldn’t shake him off.
It’s easy to get defensive in a place like India. It can really sour the experience. When you give it a chance it will surprise you. The people are very warm hearted and have a great sense of humour. The waiters at Leopold offered to pay for our meal one night because they loved Devin so much. They were extremely impressed that a white guy could speak such excellent Hindi. All the men were gathered around him conversing in Hindi. They were all extremely blown away. We even recieved an invite by our neighbors to join the dance party in the room next door by three sweaty boys with no music. Allthough we turned it down, I appreciated being asked. It was a great introduction to the remarkable country.
Mumbai gave me exactly what I wanted. I didn’t see everything, but I had a chance to catch up with an extremely close friend, eat some great food, and relax in Colaba.
I left at 4 a.m. to catch my flight to Varanasi. Devin was puking his guts out in the bathroom. He had caught something. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I caught something too.
No comments:
Post a Comment