Thank you, Gandhi

The clean waters of Mumbai

In the morning I went to the Elephanta Island where I finally saw something Indian, rather than British. The caves of a Shiva temple. Pretty interesting, not stunning or anything, but quite interesting. Incidentally, another example of the idiocy of colonialism – when the Portugese arrived here in the 16-17th C., they wanted to take the sculptures from the temple home. Since the sculptures are carved in the cave (i.e. they are not separate stones, just parts of the wall), it was impossible to move them. So what did the Portugese do? They shot at them. Just because. Fucking bastards. (Excuse swearing, but destruction of artworks is something I do get quite emotional about.)

The clean air of Mumbai

In the one hour boat ride to the island I had a chance to observe some of the pollution sources around Mumbai – the refineries on the surrounding islands produce massive clouds of smog. The contrast between the beautiful nature and the ugly smoking structures is striking. A fair deal of military structures around as well, equally ugly.

By Order

After coming back I went beyond Colaba and Fort to explore a bit further north, in the less touristy area. I guess I got used to the mess, it didn’t bother me that much anymore. The cab driver asked me if I like Indian girls, then asked if I’d like one tonight for 5000RP. When I said I have a girlfriend back home, he said she’s not here so I shouldn’t worry.

Mani Bhavan

I checked out Mani Bhavan – a house in which Mahatma Gandhi resided and which is now a small museum devoted to his person and work. It really influenced me, and made me realise that I should reevaluate my opinions of India. I started thinking: ok, it’s pretty disgusting here, but suppose for a moment that this nation hasn’t been a victim of British colonialism. That it wasn’t exploited and that the British didn’t purposefuly keep the country in the state of near starvation for centuries, downgraded it and did everything to make it as culturally, economically and socially dependant as possible. It seems that any complaining about the chaos and lack of organisation is like saying that all girls are crap at maths – of course if a nation was socialised for years to lack independence and any ability to self-govern effectively, was kept in poverty, lack of education and social values, then it’s hardly a surprise that that’s how it looks now. I can dislike this current state of affairs as much as I want, but the fact is, the blame isn’t entirely here. It’s with the British Empire assholes who took this culture and crushed it. It now makes sense why most Indian monuments and artworks worth seeing are pre-18th Century – the British came here, took everything of value, and in return introduced their own artistic and cultural styles. It’s profitable to rule over a nation of ignorant, dependent people who can’t express themselves in ways other than those you impose.

Mind you, I don’t think this excuses all. India had 65 years of independence after all, and it seems that the majority of those years were spent on religious wars and compulsive breeding, neither of which improved its situation. It’s a real shame that people like Gandhi are born once in a millenium, because it looks like India could do with another one.

Following this, here is a new portion of observations:

The main reason why I don’t feel here as well as I did in Indonesia, is because I don’t feel treated like a person. I feel treated like a purse that needs to be opened. In Sumatra people wanted to chat with me because they thought I’m interesting to chat to. Here they want to chat because they want to sell me something, at triple price. I don’t want to evaluate this, it’s all to easy for me to criticise from a point of view of someone who doesn’t have to sleep on the street. I really understand it and all I feel is pity. Still, neither pity nor the purse-feeling are good social lubricants and I simply don’t feel like talking to people here.

Indians detest the Western culture of slim bodies

Related to that is the fact that everything feels like cheating here, because there are tons of hidden cost everywhere. A man who gives you a blessing on the street won’t tell you he wants money for it until you’ve eaten his sugar pills and have a flower in your hand. The bar lad won’t tell you that the prices for food don’t include tax until you have to pay. I wasn’t told that the money for the boat to the Elephant Island is only a third of what one has to pay for the visit, until I was already there. Also, going on the upper deck on the boat costs extra. Once again – I really understand where it all comes from, but hell is it annoying!

This might be my favourite place of all

What I think lies at the bottom of all that, is a deep mutual misunderstanding on how to do business between Indians and Westerners. They try to do business with us the way they do it amongst themselves, while we don’t really try to understand their ways either. If the people who run the boats to the island said upfront that there is more money to pay once you get there, I’d gladly pay, it is still all pennies for me. Similarly with shops. The moment you look at anything in a shop the shopkeeper instantly points at something, anything, and says that this is good and cheap and you should really buy it. A Westerner is used to shopkeepers asking ‘can I help you?’, not trying to push things at you. I’d even want to buy something, but I’m scared off by the need to go through a barrage of stuff I don’t want before I find something I actually do want. If those people were less pushy and more helpful, they would make more money, at least from the tourists.

And yes, a couple steps further, an actual typing machine

Which leaves me at the way things are organised here for tourists in general. They’re not. There are no tourist information centres except for those where you can buy souvenirs. The tourist maps aren’t really meant for tourists at all – they are just street maps which don’t even point you to interesting monuments. Moreover, they are maps of the entire Mumbai, not the interesting sites. There are no signs on streets pointing to places of interest at all. And there seems to be no attempt to understand Western tourist mentality on the part of the people whose life depends on selling trinkets and souvenirs to them. Now I’m not exactly the sort of person who expects everything to be presented on a plate for me – quite the opposite, I really enjoy exploring for myself. I’m just trying to think from the perspective of people who live here – on the grand scale, Mumbai could really benefit from more tourism, it’s a poor place and tourists bring money, so if the government invested a bit, it would really pay off. On the small scale, individual people’s lives depend on tourists – street vendors and all – yet again, it seems that they are more successful at scaring people off with their pushiness than getting customers.

Public toilet. No comment.

Moving on. Everything here has to be on paper. In the hostel, I need to receive a new receipt every day, I can’t just say I’m staying until Thursday, I have to come back every day and get a new piece of paper again and again. I need to sign a new sheet every time I use the internet. The museum had to make notes of everything as well. Long live beaurocracy!

You can tell here that ‘decorum’ is a Greek concept, not an Indian one. The Indian way is contrast. Put disgusting and pretty together, and you get India.

The general observations on agitation and irritability of the locals are confirmed by the car beeping semantics. In Sumatra I could observe some pretty well defined rules. Here there are none. People just beep all the time. For example, the second the light changes to green the tenth car in the queue starts beeping – so what that it’s physically impossible for all the cars before him to have moved already, he’s beeping as loud as he can. It’s not a message, it’s just his small addition to the mess, noise and agitation. No wonder people don’t smile, how can you in this noise?

The streets are a labirynth. The fact that my map only vaguely corresponds to reality doesn’t help. Street names seem to have changed since the map was printed, though in most cases this isn’t the main problem, because the map doesn’t actually have most street names printed.

Tonight I’m going for a Bollywood movie, I’m really curious about it. I missed a chance to be in one – a guy offered me being a background in one, but it would take all day, and I didn’t feel like it. And tomorrow evening I’m leaving Mumbai for some smaller places. Really looking forward to that.