After two weeks in India Chennai (Madras) and Mumbai (Bombay), I am overdue to go back home to the family. Unfortunately, I have 48 hours before I get there, two overnight flights and a day in Singapore. It has been a good trip, meeting people and learning new things. Not all of which, I actually wanted to know…
After my first week in a very ordinary hotel in Chennai (great food and service though), which unfortunately smelt strongly of something nasty, I found myself back at the Juhu beach Marriott in Mumbai. It’s a hotel I try to stay in whenever I’m in the city because it has a great business club floor and and really good gym and pool. I have also been vegetarian for the last thirteen and a half days and I’ve lost a kilo in weight. That has, of course been assisted by the usual bout of intestinal nastiness which I get when I haven’t been here for a while and have lost whatever resistance I once had. It doesn’t seem to matter how careful I am, but after years temporarily hosting almost every intestinal parasite known to science, it only seems like I need to pick up a dirty glass and BOOM, it’s all back on me. Literally.
I always seem to get a family shopping list when I go to India and this time, it was cushion covers. Now, you wouldn’t have thought that buying cushion covers could be difficult but let me tell you, this time I had very specific instructions, not to buy anything that wasn’t exactly like the internet search pictures. My driver sent the shopkeepers the pictures on my phone who assured him in advance, that they had exactly what I wanted but when we arrived, I found out that they had the Indian equivalent of “same same, but different” They were so insistent that their wares were in fact what I really wanted, I almost began to doubt myself.
My targets – hand screen printed and embroidered…
Time for a short digression – I asked my driver to take me to the ‘gateway of India’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gateway_of_India This is a beautiful monument built by the British for King George V and Queen Mary to ceremonially enter the Jewel of the old Empire. It wasn’t actually finished in time for their visit in 1911 and they had to be content with seeing a cardboard model instead. When it was finished, it served as the first port of entry for British VIP’s from its opening in 1924, until the Somerset Light Infantry marched the Empire out of India on February the 28th, 1948.
The gateway -a must see for locals and Gora’s* together
(*not always a derogatory term for foreigners)
Anyway, back on story. I have been to the gateway many times, but for me, it never gets old. As an Englishman, albeit one several countries removed, I cannot help but feel emotional when I think of the great and good (and bad) of my countrymen and women who had the audacity to presume to rule India for almost 200 years. I felt the need to see the sunset from the gateway and I asked my usual driver to take me there. He rolled his eyes, as he often does when I ask him to go against the traffic at the busiest time of the day and he manfully pulled one of the most dangerous U turns my sometimes fragile mental state has had to contend with.
We got to the gateway some 30 minutes after sunset, but that was my fault for not making the decision much earlier. That and the fact that Rajasthan was playing the Mumbai Indians (yes, that really is the name of the local cricket team) in the vicinity and a multitude of fans had almost blocked Marine drive, which is the seafront road adjoining Chowpatty beach.
Indian craftsmanship at its best.
Eventually, I stepped out of the car only to be accosted by a young lady carrying a small baby who immediately said “Sir, don’t give me money, but please buy me food” Two years previously I had been accosted by and had accompanied a lady with a baby past several open and relatively pleasant smelling food stalls with me offering to buy her some food to the ‘nearest shop’ which was actually a table set up in an alleyway and I handed over enough rupees to feed a small village for half a bag of rice and litre of water. I looked a little closer at the lady and realised that she was the very same person that I had been previously ‘had’ by. My driver, always polite, but clearly no stranger to the scam, looked quizzically at me and having been my driver the last time I was there, was amazed when I asked him to translate that it was lovely to see her again and that her baby hadn’t aged a day.
He said “Sir, how can you remember her?” thinking that as a daft foreigner, I might actually think that all non white people look the same. I reminded him of the night we first met her and how much I had spent for so little and he laughed and translated the same to her. She had the good grace to smile, admit that it was her other sisters baby and waggle her head in the friendly way that they do here as I purchased a jasmine garland from her as a consolation prize.
I walked across the road to Leopold’s, the ‘touristy but good’ iconic restaurant that was attacked in 2008 as part of the assault that killed numerous people and seriously damaged another nearby institution, the Taj hotel.
‘The Taj’ Still being repaired ten years later.
Leopolds Cafe has the reputation of having the rudest waiters in India. I wasn’t sure about that, but I certainly found that they were the wittiest in town when I was accompanied by my driver Dharminder who speaks Marathi (the local dialect) and translated the wonderfully catty commentary they kept up non stop, to describe customers who did not openly venerate the profession of waiting table. It’s fun, the beer is cold and the food is relatively hygienic, so I try to go each time I am there.
Dharminder told me that had already spoken to the ‘lady with the baby’ and shown her the photographs of my shopping mission and asked her to find out where they were sold. For a price, she had reported back that she had found a shop nearby and that their stock was exactly what the strange Gora was after.
The shop was tiny and the floor to ceiling shelves were packed with colourful fabrics and with four of us in it, there was barely room to turn around, but the owners scurried up and down ladders fetching everything that they thought I might want. It was clearly a well rehearsed routine and they shuffled and dealt fabrics onto the counter like card sharps. I face timed Mrs. Jerry (at 1am unfortunately) to show her the wares and the whole performance was repeated. The lady with the baby stood at the window, smiling and head waggling whilst no doubt, mentally counting up her commission.
I came away from the evening with a stack of colourful cushion covers and yet another unique Bombay experience.
My flights home were long and not the most comfortable ever, but I shouldn’t complain as I am now back by the fire at home, watching the dogs.
George, transfixed by the flames.
