Slumming it in Mumbai

It’s fair to say I started my week in Mumbai in a bad mood.

Happily, this is a good news post and I exited the City with a different mindset.

For our 15-hour sleeper bus journey into the city, Dave and I shared a ‘double bed’.

To picture it, imagine a one-person tent, made of metal that shakes you violently against the walls and each other with every bump in the very bumpy road.

I was just a little bit grumpy by the time we got off the bus and the unfortunate taxi driver who tried to up our agreed price after we’d loaded our bags into his cab felt my fury. I’m pretty sure my 4-letter word tirade crossed the language barrier. I ***ing hope it did, the greedy ****ing ****.

Mumbai is a very busy city.  A bit of a rat race. Dreamers from all over India come here to chase their fortunes. Inevitably not all of them can be successful.

Like a lot of the country, it’s full of contrast. I saw a family living under a billboard advertisement for luxury apartments boasting infinity pool balconies.

Mumbai is home to more millionaires than New York and also home to a slum of one million people. The distribution of wealth would have Lenin turning in his glass case.

Our visit was planned to coincide with a 5-day cricket match between India and England at the Wankhede (haw haw) Stadium. The four of us (me, Dave, Paul and Kate had booked full-match tickets at a cost of seven pounds fifty. As a devout sports fan, I couldn’t wait.

It turned out, I was so mind-numbingly bored after 2 hours of cricket (they didn’t sell beer) that I left, changed out of my clingy polyester fake England shirt and spent the rest of the afternoon taking the excellent audio tour of Mumbai’s Prince of Wales museum.

I watched another couple of hours of cricket in the next few days when Kevin Pietersen was batting, but strangely I feel I would have more enjoyed watching the game in an armchair at home, wearing pants and nursing a Magners.

With a city like Mumbai in my grasp and a very efficient and cheap metro system serving almost the entire city, I wanted to go exploring.

After a bit of convincing, Kate came with me to into Dharvi, Mumbai’s largest slum. A million people live there in a squalid square mile sandwiched between two railway lines.

I determined not to go in there to gawp at the poor people and the shitty conditions that they live in.

I wanted to play football.

I bought a brand new leather ball from a market and after starting off on my own, gradually convinced a dustbowl of children to abandon their games of cricket and join me to play footy. After one or two came over and helped to build a goal out of a pile of broken bricks, it didn’t take long before there were 40 of us skidding around chasing after the ball in 35 degree heat.

Heartbreakingly, one of my teammates, a 10-year-old boy, told me he had to work after the match. He caught up with me as I crossed a railway bridge and tried to sell me a shirt. One of the other boys took my empty water bottle for its recycling value.

Nonetheless, it was truly one of the best experiences I’ve ever had.

I enjoyed it so much that I went back and did it again two days later with Kate and another British couple, Jay and Caron.

The big match, Team Matt v Team Jay must have reached 25-a-side at one point. I don’t feel a need to mention the score because we were all winners. And my team lost.

 Afterwards, we took a walk around with some of our new chums and the slum’s fire station chief invited us to take chai with him. It was a very nice gesture, considering the filthy state of me and my clothes. The cynic in me thinks perhaps he was keener on having two pretty Western girls in his office than he was on chatting to us sweaty blokes, but I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.

Also, whilst I was wasting my cricket ticket, I visited a Jain Temple where some sort of funky fascinating Hindu ceremony was going on. Amongst the clouds of incense smoke, tambourine and religious chanting, I was the only visiting tourist and though I was ignored, I was quite welcome and free to observe and take photos.

I’ve taken to carrying a pocketful of sweets to give to children. For clarity, I have not gone all Jimmy Saville but I’ve found this to be a decent solution to the problem of being approached by tens of child beggars each day.

I know handing over one sweet isn’t going to save their life. And I’m aware that many people would implore me not to do it as it incites further begging, but from a selfish point of view, it helps me to feel slightly more human to be able to engage with them, rather than dismiss them or just walk past. To bend down, look in their pitiful eyes, say hello, smile and hand over a solitary sweet. Strangely, I’ve actually rather enjoyed the ritual.

In Mumbai, we said an emotional and boozy farewell to our two buddies Paul and Kate, a terrific couple and our travelling companions for our first month in India. It was particularly emotional for me as I accepted a ‘Kamizake’ shot with a young Indian guy whose father owned the bar we were drinking in. It was a large glass of neat tequila, sambuca and vodka. It hit me so hard that I was convinced my drink had been spiked and needed taking home.

I must also give a special mention to a very friendly Indian guy I met at a sandwich stall whilst he was on his lunch break. He spoke good English, but only in the present tense. I found it hilarious and endearing in equal measure.

Me: Do you know the cricket score?

Him: Currently I am not presently knowing what the scoring is being. Maybe I will be checking when I am getting back to my office.

I kept talking to him for as long as possible. Until he was absolutely needing to be going back to working.

On a more somber note, our visit coincided with the 4^th anniversary of the Mumbai terrorism attacks in which the city was under siege for 3 days. That really must have been a horrible time for India, the residents of Mumbai and visiting foreigners.