Mr Roland mutters some feeble excuse about having to go out and earn rupees, for me to sprinkle round In Orbit with such largesse, so I take Monu shopping with me instead. And do you know what? He doesn’t ask for a cup of coffee every twenty-five minutes, nor does he keep trying to slope off to Mr Raymond’s, tailors, to get himself measured for a rack of new shirts. Accha!
In Monu-world, all shops fall into one of three categories. First, “big mall shop, very nice, very famous.” Then, “small shop, no fixed price, very danger.” And lastly, the lock-ups: “small, small shop, all day open.” These include, by way of sub-set, the pavement shops, with nothing to lock up. Everything, from strips of pre-packed paan and cycle helmets, to coconuts and chandeliers, can be bought in the fresh air, on a Mumbai pavement.
When Monu comes to collect me, for our retail marathon, he’s got an orange bindi on his forehead. I ask, if he’s been to the temple. “Today, my god-day. First, go to temple, seven o’clock.” Ganesh gets up early, then. We drive to Malad, Monu’s home turf, and park at the kerb. He points down the street with a flourish. “Twelve and fifteen furniture shop.” (I will shoot the person who teaches him to say “to” and not “and” – “two to three hours” in Monuspeak is “two and three hour”- it makes me smile every time.)
Today, I’m after a sofa-bed. For the first three shops, we have a communication problem, then Monu says politely, “This is, folding-bed,” and the way forward unravels, on castors. The man, in the folding-bed shop, picks up the demo model off the pavement, and wrestles it into his lair. “Sit!” he barks at me. I smile, and shake my head, in case sitting concludes the contract. “You will sit,” he says, gritting his teeth, “please!” What can I do? I sit. “Five thousand five hundred rupee!” I'll take it, I think. Monu closes his eyes, and turns his face fractionally away, but I’m watching, and don’t get the sockful of rupees out of my handbag, just yet. Instead, I point at a mark on the fabric seat. Monu and folding-bed man chorus, “No this one! New one!” in horrified amusement. So I sift through the swatch-book, and choose a cloth. Then I check out several hundred more samples, to make sure we like the first one best. Isn’t it always the way?
Monu and the man strike up a heated debate, but since it’s in Hindi, all I can say for definite, is that they don’t mention lemons or bangles. (Nimbu aur churi.) The man’s getting a bit theatrical and aggressive, many gestures and throat-slitting mimes. I wonder if Monu’s making disparaging remarks about his mother. Every so often, Monu laughs, and looks away, shaking his head. Then, he stares at the man, and starts again. It’s interminable. I’m just about to start tip-toeing towards the door, when Monu says, “Madame, four thousand ok?”
See, the next best thing to knowing how to barter, is having a Monu.
I fill in the usual form – name, address, inside-leg, favourite pizza topping, etc. – and they discuss delivery. I think we’re arranging to collect it next week, but this moves folding-bed man to desperate English, “No collect. I come. Six o’clock.” Given that it’s gone mid-day, this is going to involve some pretty nifty stitching, but this is India. We all say, “Six o’clock. Today,” in a round, pointing at the floor, for some reason. The deal’s done.
Outside, Monu says, “This man angry, first he say, his benefit only 300 rupees.” If his profit margin on five and a half thousand rupees is only three hundred rupees, how come we get a fifteen hundred discount? Retail’s a complete fiction. I wonder if all transactions are ripe for frowning negotiation. Monu waxes economically expansive: “Big malls – In Orbit, Phoenix – government shops, fixed price. Small shops, no fixed price, very danger.” I say, in future, he can come shopping with me, and Mr Roland can drive the car.
Monu laughs. He thinks I’m joking.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Monday, April 28, 2008
Dharavi - Thinking Again
Keeping up is critical. Geography’s not my forte (don’t ask me what is. I can do quite nice Lazy Daisy stitch, as and when the need arises...). I can – and do – get lost in my own Sainsbury’s, if they put parsnips where the cornflakes were, last week. The maze of Dharavi’s criss-crossing runnels and alleys would tax even Mr Roland’s innate compass, so we can’t afford to let Ravi get more than an eyelash in front. There’s so much to look at, in the residential zone, I’m getting neck-ache from swivelling side to side, as our guide nimbly hops across open sewers and darts down alleyways. Every young person we meet wants a hello or a high five, but I see Ravi’s chatting, too. He says, they’re all asking him about his exams. He’s about to sit his pre-university exams, and has been home to his village, preparing. Even the dogs we meet, he knows by name. We’re in good hands.
I ask him, what a house here is worth (entire floor space, less than a double garage), and he says, three, maybe four lakh (£40-50,000). I’m amazed, having had the Monu Singh All-Mumbai Property Tour, because Dharavi houses are more cramped and altogether less luscious, than the two lakh houses elsewhere. Then I remember the three most important things about real estate, no less true here, than in Putney. Little wonder, that developers are circling round and round, like black kites.
At the patisserie, trays of Khari biscuits – cooked and uncooked – are stacked in towers, on the floor, round the ovens. “You want to try?” Ravi says, ducking in and filching a hot handful. They’re like little mouthfuls of nothing, so light, probably about 840 calories each. We continue our trek, munching, spraying crumbs, and I worry about paying for our snack. “Don’t worry,” Ravi says, “you’re with me.”
We have to take off our shoes, to go into the sewing-factory. I leave my new trainers conspicuously lurking on top of a mountain of flip-flops at the door, and step inside. Everyone stops working, to come and talk to us. We count twelve men, each with a sewing-machine, and a heap of fabric pieces. They’re making baby clothes, pink and blue, to be sold locally. I ask how long their working day is. Ten hours. Twelve machines, twelve men, tiny room, no windows. As working conditions go, it’s not great. They’re all laughing, though, and proud of their work.
We see animals by the ark-ful, cats, chickens, dogs, goats, but no children under three or four. Where are the babies? “Inside house,” Ravi says. “All people looking at, no good for child. Stay inside with...” his English fails him, and he mimes the rest. They keep their babies away from public glare, marking their faces with a black dot, to mar their perfection, so as not to attract the Evil Eye.
Dharavi has water for three hours a day. When the tap’s working, you fill your blue water-tub, for the rest of the day. There’s approximately one toilet per fifteen hundred inhabitants, so the offices of necessity aren’t very appealing. Instead, people use Mahim Creek, or the ironically named Mithi (sweet) River. “Are you hot? Do you fancy a swim?” asks Ravi. He points, laughing, to the opaque grey water of the creek, with its unspeakable flotsam and jetsam. “You go, I’m waiting here!” We say, another day, maybe.
The poppadum ladies roll out balls of dough, and lay them on tilted round wicker trays, to dry in the sun. They’re paid 20 rupees per kilo, which the manufacturers sell on for 120 rupees. Ravi’s disgusted – he says it looks like they’re providing jobs, but it’s slave-labour. The women make maybe 60 rupees a day, which Ravi says is ok, for a woman. I teach him the phrase “thin ice” – but he says, women also are responsible for home and family, and can’t work a full day. I watch a lady, harvesting the dried papad, and she drops one. It lands, half on the floor, half on her sandal, and she picks it up to stack it with the rest. Well, it needs cooking before eating, it’ll be fine.
Crossing the tanners’ sector, we interrupt a cricket game, but everyone’s delighted to break off, to come and shake hands. We stand, discussing the tanning industry, and the young cricketers drag along their even younger siblings to meet us - “This my sister, she say hello!” We see the machines, for buffing the goatskins, before they’re stretched to dry. The tanners are Muslim, mostly. Before the riots, in the early 1990s, Muslim and Hindu lived cheek by jowl. Hundreds of people died, during the fighting, and the two peoples had to separate, to co-exist. Now, Dharavi’s more segregated, but peaceful.
Ravi takes us to the school, set up by Reality Tours. English lessons are available to all. Some pay a nominal fifty rupees, Ravi says, because if they don’t pay anything, they think they don’t have to come. Others don’t pay at all. The classroom’s tiny, fourteen desks. A course in electronics is also available, for aspiring electricians. We fill in a feedback form (every time you buy a sandwich here, you have to tell them, in writing, whether you’re delighted or devastated, with not only your name and phone number, but your birthday and wedding anniversary...). I’m supposed to say what I think of my visit to the Pottery, but we’ve not been yet. Shall I assume, I ask Ravi, that it will be Very Interesting? “You keep the form,” he says. “See later.”
The potters – kumbhar – have more space, and more substantial housing, it seems, than the recyclers. Pot-throwing’s done in the morning, to give the pots time to dry out, in the sun, before being fired in the evening, when the heat of the day has diminished. The women sit under the awning, rubbing the clay under their thumbs, to take out small stones, which would destroy a vessel in the firing. In the house, the men use electric wheels to shape the clay into fat-bellied pots. Outside, the ovens are walled in, like pig-pens. The smouldering cotton, blanketing the kilns, produces a heat-shimmer, and the air’s thick with drifting waste. They can’t use sawdust or wood-chippings, because they burn too fast, and scorch the outside of the pot before the inside’s dry.
A potter takes my hand, and keeps it, while he tells me about his family and his business, and enquires about mine. I’m a chapatti away from exchanging email addresses with him, when Ravi drags us on to visit his mate, Dave, ex-tour guide extraordinaire, slum-dweller on the way up. His new job’s with a merchant bank, and he’s learning, via his two-week induction course, how to talk to clients. Ravi shares with us the tiny spiced mangoes he swipes from Dave’s Mum, who’s making pickle indoors. A bit of a magpie, our Ravi, but he gets away with everything. He’ll be a millionaire, before he’s finished.
This settlement couldn’t and shouldn’t be decanted into high-rise flats. The potters, and the tanners, and the recyclers, they all need floor-space. If you weren’t here before 2000, in any case, you’re not entitled to any compensation or re-housing. “Vision Mumbai” – designed to make a world-class city of Mumbai within five years – is, at best, naive. Less charitably, it’s opportunist profiteering.
Suddenly, there’s Monu, across the road, waving, and we’re back in the real world. Except, all the tin-polishers and rag-pickers and khari-bakers are still there, polishing and picking and baking, after their lives coincided with mine for a snatched minute. It makes you think.
I ask him, what a house here is worth (entire floor space, less than a double garage), and he says, three, maybe four lakh (£40-50,000). I’m amazed, having had the Monu Singh All-Mumbai Property Tour, because Dharavi houses are more cramped and altogether less luscious, than the two lakh houses elsewhere. Then I remember the three most important things about real estate, no less true here, than in Putney. Little wonder, that developers are circling round and round, like black kites.
At the patisserie, trays of Khari biscuits – cooked and uncooked – are stacked in towers, on the floor, round the ovens. “You want to try?” Ravi says, ducking in and filching a hot handful. They’re like little mouthfuls of nothing, so light, probably about 840 calories each. We continue our trek, munching, spraying crumbs, and I worry about paying for our snack. “Don’t worry,” Ravi says, “you’re with me.”
We have to take off our shoes, to go into the sewing-factory. I leave my new trainers conspicuously lurking on top of a mountain of flip-flops at the door, and step inside. Everyone stops working, to come and talk to us. We count twelve men, each with a sewing-machine, and a heap of fabric pieces. They’re making baby clothes, pink and blue, to be sold locally. I ask how long their working day is. Ten hours. Twelve machines, twelve men, tiny room, no windows. As working conditions go, it’s not great. They’re all laughing, though, and proud of their work.
We see animals by the ark-ful, cats, chickens, dogs, goats, but no children under three or four. Where are the babies? “Inside house,” Ravi says. “All people looking at, no good for child. Stay inside with...” his English fails him, and he mimes the rest. They keep their babies away from public glare, marking their faces with a black dot, to mar their perfection, so as not to attract the Evil Eye.
Dharavi has water for three hours a day. When the tap’s working, you fill your blue water-tub, for the rest of the day. There’s approximately one toilet per fifteen hundred inhabitants, so the offices of necessity aren’t very appealing. Instead, people use Mahim Creek, or the ironically named Mithi (sweet) River. “Are you hot? Do you fancy a swim?” asks Ravi. He points, laughing, to the opaque grey water of the creek, with its unspeakable flotsam and jetsam. “You go, I’m waiting here!” We say, another day, maybe.
The poppadum ladies roll out balls of dough, and lay them on tilted round wicker trays, to dry in the sun. They’re paid 20 rupees per kilo, which the manufacturers sell on for 120 rupees. Ravi’s disgusted – he says it looks like they’re providing jobs, but it’s slave-labour. The women make maybe 60 rupees a day, which Ravi says is ok, for a woman. I teach him the phrase “thin ice” – but he says, women also are responsible for home and family, and can’t work a full day. I watch a lady, harvesting the dried papad, and she drops one. It lands, half on the floor, half on her sandal, and she picks it up to stack it with the rest. Well, it needs cooking before eating, it’ll be fine.
Crossing the tanners’ sector, we interrupt a cricket game, but everyone’s delighted to break off, to come and shake hands. We stand, discussing the tanning industry, and the young cricketers drag along their even younger siblings to meet us - “This my sister, she say hello!” We see the machines, for buffing the goatskins, before they’re stretched to dry. The tanners are Muslim, mostly. Before the riots, in the early 1990s, Muslim and Hindu lived cheek by jowl. Hundreds of people died, during the fighting, and the two peoples had to separate, to co-exist. Now, Dharavi’s more segregated, but peaceful.
Ravi takes us to the school, set up by Reality Tours. English lessons are available to all. Some pay a nominal fifty rupees, Ravi says, because if they don’t pay anything, they think they don’t have to come. Others don’t pay at all. The classroom’s tiny, fourteen desks. A course in electronics is also available, for aspiring electricians. We fill in a feedback form (every time you buy a sandwich here, you have to tell them, in writing, whether you’re delighted or devastated, with not only your name and phone number, but your birthday and wedding anniversary...). I’m supposed to say what I think of my visit to the Pottery, but we’ve not been yet. Shall I assume, I ask Ravi, that it will be Very Interesting? “You keep the form,” he says. “See later.”
The potters – kumbhar – have more space, and more substantial housing, it seems, than the recyclers. Pot-throwing’s done in the morning, to give the pots time to dry out, in the sun, before being fired in the evening, when the heat of the day has diminished. The women sit under the awning, rubbing the clay under their thumbs, to take out small stones, which would destroy a vessel in the firing. In the house, the men use electric wheels to shape the clay into fat-bellied pots. Outside, the ovens are walled in, like pig-pens. The smouldering cotton, blanketing the kilns, produces a heat-shimmer, and the air’s thick with drifting waste. They can’t use sawdust or wood-chippings, because they burn too fast, and scorch the outside of the pot before the inside’s dry.
A potter takes my hand, and keeps it, while he tells me about his family and his business, and enquires about mine. I’m a chapatti away from exchanging email addresses with him, when Ravi drags us on to visit his mate, Dave, ex-tour guide extraordinaire, slum-dweller on the way up. His new job’s with a merchant bank, and he’s learning, via his two-week induction course, how to talk to clients. Ravi shares with us the tiny spiced mangoes he swipes from Dave’s Mum, who’s making pickle indoors. A bit of a magpie, our Ravi, but he gets away with everything. He’ll be a millionaire, before he’s finished.
This settlement couldn’t and shouldn’t be decanted into high-rise flats. The potters, and the tanners, and the recyclers, they all need floor-space. If you weren’t here before 2000, in any case, you’re not entitled to any compensation or re-housing. “Vision Mumbai” – designed to make a world-class city of Mumbai within five years – is, at best, naive. Less charitably, it’s opportunist profiteering.
Suddenly, there’s Monu, across the road, waving, and we’re back in the real world. Except, all the tin-polishers and rag-pickers and khari-bakers are still there, polishing and picking and baking, after their lives coincided with mine for a snatched minute. It makes you think.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Dharavi - The Heart of Mumbai
It’s 38 degrees today, which is a great pity, because there’s not a cat’s chance of aircon, where we’re going. The book says, wear covered shoes, and don’t take a camera. Monu’s clearly uncertain of the touristic value of our planned expedition, and refuses to leave us until our afternoon’s guide, Ravi, appears and introduces himself.
We cross over the railway bridge at Mahim Station, and step into Dharavi, the biggest slum in the slum-capital of the world, Mumbai. I’m almost frightened of what we’re going to see, but it turns out to be as breath-taking as the Taj Mahal. Not for the same reasons, obviously.
In the early days, Dharavi used to be a carbuncle on the very outskirts of Mumbai, but the city’s since spread to meet and encompass it. Dharavi now occupies the central square mile of the City of Dreams. If you’re thinking, real estate – and that’s precisely what the developers are thinking – it’s a gold mine, with open sewers. Location, location, location. The scheme in bud, is to rehouse Dharavi’s inhabitants upwards, thus using only half their current square footage. You may ask, where’s the wisdom in replacing horizontal slums with vertical slums? The other half of the cleared slum-site is then up for grabs for – you guessed – luxury apartments and shopping malls. Just what Mumbai needs, another mall...
Slum’s such a negative word, trailing notions of deprivation, squalor and disease. After half an hour in Dharavi, I go looking for alternatives, but reject polite euphemisms like “social housing” as being condescending. I come full circle, back to the word “slum,” which just needs redefining.
Ravi’s worked for Reality Tours, since the company was conceived two and a half years ago, by Krishna Poojari and Chris Way, who had exactly that redefinition in mind. It was a feat of imagination and daring, since Dharavi’s hardly a classic tourist destination. As you enter its precincts, there are no touts, trying to flog you pictures of it on postcards or mugs or t-shirts. It’s not to make a spectacle out of poverty, that this company was created, but to dispel received opinion, about slum-dwelling. Before crossing the threshold, I expect to feel pity and distaste. With my eyes and ears and – let’s be honest – nose full of Dharavi, I feel nothing but admiration and amazement.
As we swerve along the broad main swag through the district, past the mango-sellers and street barbers, Ravi fires facts and figures at us. Dharavi’s a hub of manufacturing and recycling, accommodating thousands of small businesses, with a combined annual turnover of more than £330M. Not so easy, to brush under the developers’ carpet, then.
We turn off the high street – watching our feet – into the rat-runs of tiny paths behind the shop fronts. Some of the alleyways are so narrow, you have to turn sideways, and walk like a crab, ducking jutting beams and swinging light-bulbs overhead, not to mention spiders of exposed cables, hanging free. A tricky place to come home to, I say, after a night out with the lads....
Ravi puts his head into a doorway. Inside, a man sits at a band-saw, slicing chunks off a block of wood. Ravi leans in, picks up a sliver, and puts it in my hand. Rounded contours are carved into it. “Heel for shoe,” he says. In the little booth, the saw sounds like a dentist’s drill, and the air’s thick with dust. On the floor, oblivious of drill and visitors, a second man stretches asleep, on a thin mattress – he’s the evening shift. The machinists need to sleep, but the machine doesn’t.
Dharavi’s the heart of Mumbai’s re-cycling industry. Nothing’s wasted. On the streets, you see old ladies, poking through the contents of rubbish-bins, with a stick. The waste-bins, in the park near our apartment block, are upturned every night, in the same quest. We put our recycling material in bags, in the stairwell, on the thirty-third floor, and the following morning, it’s gone. Someone’s prepared to collect it and hand it on, for a few rupees. Most of it ends up in Dharavi.
There are whole streets full of recycling factories. “Factory” gives you the wrong grandiose idea. These are buildings the size of a domestic shed, with hot machinery and even hotter operators. The plastic waste – water-bottles, drinking-cups, food packaging – is sorted by colour, then ground to cinder-like granules. At another “factory” the granules are melted, and extruded to make plastic spaghetti, to be cooled and chibbled into uniform chips, for onward sale and a new life. It’s hot, in the waste-strewn alley outside. Inside, with the molten plastic and furnace, it’s almost unbearable. The seven workers are all smiling, though, and happy to tip before and after samples into our curious hands.
Ravi asks, if we want to see the can-recycling street. We do. A swift right-turn, and we’re in Tin-Can Alley. On cue, a man walks by, with twenty or more shining two-gallon cans, balanced on his head. After use, the empties are greasy, rusty and dented. At home, they’d be fit for the tip. Here, they’re collected and painstakingly restored. Inside a steaming shed, men sit on the floor to scour the cans inside and out, with hot water and chemicals. I put my hand inside the hole at the top of a can, to see if it’s possible. It’s possible. With wooden hammers, they scrupulously tap out the dents, and the cans are sold back to the original owners, for reuse. Next-door, even more amazingly, they recondition paint-tins.
“Everything, re-use,” says Ravi, emphatically, and takes us to the cardboard-box revitalising suite. He picks up the top one of a stack of flattened boxes, and shows us the inside. Bisleri, it says. They take a used box, remove the staples, turn it inside out, trim it, and restaple it for Round Two. What a waste, I say, all those discarded old staples. “Staples,” Ravi says, “no throw away - collect, melt down, re-use.” Even after two incarnations, the box isn’t finished – there are chemical treatments, to remove industrial ink, making the box blank and available for service yet again. The conservation of particles, in everyday life.
We’re in the industrial quarter of Dharavi, where workers live above their tiny factories. Their wives and families live outside Mumbai, in the villages on the mainland. “You want to see residential area?” Ravi asks. “Here people living, but go outside to work, cab-drivers, factory workers, doctors...” “Doctors?” I say. “No big doctors in government hospitals, small, small doctors,” he says. “This way, come. Be careful, your feet.”
Ravi leads. We follow.
We cross over the railway bridge at Mahim Station, and step into Dharavi, the biggest slum in the slum-capital of the world, Mumbai. I’m almost frightened of what we’re going to see, but it turns out to be as breath-taking as the Taj Mahal. Not for the same reasons, obviously.
In the early days, Dharavi used to be a carbuncle on the very outskirts of Mumbai, but the city’s since spread to meet and encompass it. Dharavi now occupies the central square mile of the City of Dreams. If you’re thinking, real estate – and that’s precisely what the developers are thinking – it’s a gold mine, with open sewers. Location, location, location. The scheme in bud, is to rehouse Dharavi’s inhabitants upwards, thus using only half their current square footage. You may ask, where’s the wisdom in replacing horizontal slums with vertical slums? The other half of the cleared slum-site is then up for grabs for – you guessed – luxury apartments and shopping malls. Just what Mumbai needs, another mall...
Slum’s such a negative word, trailing notions of deprivation, squalor and disease. After half an hour in Dharavi, I go looking for alternatives, but reject polite euphemisms like “social housing” as being condescending. I come full circle, back to the word “slum,” which just needs redefining.
Ravi’s worked for Reality Tours, since the company was conceived two and a half years ago, by Krishna Poojari and Chris Way, who had exactly that redefinition in mind. It was a feat of imagination and daring, since Dharavi’s hardly a classic tourist destination. As you enter its precincts, there are no touts, trying to flog you pictures of it on postcards or mugs or t-shirts. It’s not to make a spectacle out of poverty, that this company was created, but to dispel received opinion, about slum-dwelling. Before crossing the threshold, I expect to feel pity and distaste. With my eyes and ears and – let’s be honest – nose full of Dharavi, I feel nothing but admiration and amazement.
As we swerve along the broad main swag through the district, past the mango-sellers and street barbers, Ravi fires facts and figures at us. Dharavi’s a hub of manufacturing and recycling, accommodating thousands of small businesses, with a combined annual turnover of more than £330M. Not so easy, to brush under the developers’ carpet, then.
We turn off the high street – watching our feet – into the rat-runs of tiny paths behind the shop fronts. Some of the alleyways are so narrow, you have to turn sideways, and walk like a crab, ducking jutting beams and swinging light-bulbs overhead, not to mention spiders of exposed cables, hanging free. A tricky place to come home to, I say, after a night out with the lads....
Ravi puts his head into a doorway. Inside, a man sits at a band-saw, slicing chunks off a block of wood. Ravi leans in, picks up a sliver, and puts it in my hand. Rounded contours are carved into it. “Heel for shoe,” he says. In the little booth, the saw sounds like a dentist’s drill, and the air’s thick with dust. On the floor, oblivious of drill and visitors, a second man stretches asleep, on a thin mattress – he’s the evening shift. The machinists need to sleep, but the machine doesn’t.
Dharavi’s the heart of Mumbai’s re-cycling industry. Nothing’s wasted. On the streets, you see old ladies, poking through the contents of rubbish-bins, with a stick. The waste-bins, in the park near our apartment block, are upturned every night, in the same quest. We put our recycling material in bags, in the stairwell, on the thirty-third floor, and the following morning, it’s gone. Someone’s prepared to collect it and hand it on, for a few rupees. Most of it ends up in Dharavi.
There are whole streets full of recycling factories. “Factory” gives you the wrong grandiose idea. These are buildings the size of a domestic shed, with hot machinery and even hotter operators. The plastic waste – water-bottles, drinking-cups, food packaging – is sorted by colour, then ground to cinder-like granules. At another “factory” the granules are melted, and extruded to make plastic spaghetti, to be cooled and chibbled into uniform chips, for onward sale and a new life. It’s hot, in the waste-strewn alley outside. Inside, with the molten plastic and furnace, it’s almost unbearable. The seven workers are all smiling, though, and happy to tip before and after samples into our curious hands.
Ravi asks, if we want to see the can-recycling street. We do. A swift right-turn, and we’re in Tin-Can Alley. On cue, a man walks by, with twenty or more shining two-gallon cans, balanced on his head. After use, the empties are greasy, rusty and dented. At home, they’d be fit for the tip. Here, they’re collected and painstakingly restored. Inside a steaming shed, men sit on the floor to scour the cans inside and out, with hot water and chemicals. I put my hand inside the hole at the top of a can, to see if it’s possible. It’s possible. With wooden hammers, they scrupulously tap out the dents, and the cans are sold back to the original owners, for reuse. Next-door, even more amazingly, they recondition paint-tins.
“Everything, re-use,” says Ravi, emphatically, and takes us to the cardboard-box revitalising suite. He picks up the top one of a stack of flattened boxes, and shows us the inside. Bisleri, it says. They take a used box, remove the staples, turn it inside out, trim it, and restaple it for Round Two. What a waste, I say, all those discarded old staples. “Staples,” Ravi says, “no throw away - collect, melt down, re-use.” Even after two incarnations, the box isn’t finished – there are chemical treatments, to remove industrial ink, making the box blank and available for service yet again. The conservation of particles, in everyday life.
We’re in the industrial quarter of Dharavi, where workers live above their tiny factories. Their wives and families live outside Mumbai, in the villages on the mainland. “You want to see residential area?” Ravi asks. “Here people living, but go outside to work, cab-drivers, factory workers, doctors...” “Doctors?” I say. “No big doctors in government hospitals, small, small doctors,” he says. “This way, come. Be careful, your feet.”
Ravi leads. We follow.
Friday, April 25, 2008
Mumbai In Black and White
Speak of India, and you won’t get as far as the first full stop, without needing the word, “contrast.” Nowhere is that need more apparent, than in Mumbai.
In the villages, life’s pared down to its simplest. It’s as basic as it gets – breathe, eat, excrete, sleep, reproduce. Living doesn’t come much simpler than that. In the city, on the other hand, simple’s the last thing life is, whether home’s a six-bedroomed penthouse, in the clouds, or a canvas tent, propped up by an old stick, under the flyover. The haves of Mumbai society are bewildered by constant choices thrust under their noses. Which restaurant? Which tailor? Which foreign holiday? Which new car? For the have-nots, it’s the lack of choice, which complicates life.
Lolling on cushions, in cool five-star comfort, we sip imported wine, while we browse through a menu as big as a family bible. We’re never not aware, though, that there’s a whole other world, the other side of the plate-glass demarcation line, patrolled by liveried doormen, in the hot night outside. It taxes my personal thermostat, popping constantly in and out of the air-conditioning, plunging more than ten degrees down, then flipping back up again, into the felted air. It’s even worse, swinging from sybaritic indulgence to grinding need, a hundred times, in the space of one short car-ride. My psyche’s exhausted, just watching life unroll on the pavement.
The big restaurants are decorated daily, with enough flowers to keep Ganesh happy for a month. Monu drops us off, but before we’re ushered into marbled splendour, we give him a fistful of rupees, so he can go and eat, whilst he’s waiting. The luxury tax winches prices up accordingly, so when the bill sidles coyly onto the table, you need to relocate your mind and your credit card a few thousand miles west. Monu’s dinner costs less than fifty rupees, and ours, more than he earns in a month.
I know.
Obscene.
In the villages, life’s pared down to its simplest. It’s as basic as it gets – breathe, eat, excrete, sleep, reproduce. Living doesn’t come much simpler than that. In the city, on the other hand, simple’s the last thing life is, whether home’s a six-bedroomed penthouse, in the clouds, or a canvas tent, propped up by an old stick, under the flyover. The haves of Mumbai society are bewildered by constant choices thrust under their noses. Which restaurant? Which tailor? Which foreign holiday? Which new car? For the have-nots, it’s the lack of choice, which complicates life.
Lolling on cushions, in cool five-star comfort, we sip imported wine, while we browse through a menu as big as a family bible. We’re never not aware, though, that there’s a whole other world, the other side of the plate-glass demarcation line, patrolled by liveried doormen, in the hot night outside. It taxes my personal thermostat, popping constantly in and out of the air-conditioning, plunging more than ten degrees down, then flipping back up again, into the felted air. It’s even worse, swinging from sybaritic indulgence to grinding need, a hundred times, in the space of one short car-ride. My psyche’s exhausted, just watching life unroll on the pavement.
The big restaurants are decorated daily, with enough flowers to keep Ganesh happy for a month. Monu drops us off, but before we’re ushered into marbled splendour, we give him a fistful of rupees, so he can go and eat, whilst he’s waiting. The luxury tax winches prices up accordingly, so when the bill sidles coyly onto the table, you need to relocate your mind and your credit card a few thousand miles west. Monu’s dinner costs less than fifty rupees, and ours, more than he earns in a month.
I know.
Obscene.
We drink bottled water, and congratulate ourselves on being cool enough, to ask for it room temperature, instead of chilled. The pavement children use the stand-pipe, or filch from an unguarded water-lorry, or they slip into nearby office blocks, to fill their water-carriers. A scrawny girl comes begging at the lights. She’s starvation-thin, not out of Kate Moss chic, but rather the absence of alternatives. She points at the bottle of Bisleri, on the seat next to me, in the back of the car, so I open the window and hand it to her. I’m not supposed to give money, but no-one said anything about water. She runs off, holding it aloft, jubilant. When was the last time clean water made you laugh?
Back at the Sheraton, should you wish to avail yourself of The Facilities, a sari’d lady will welcome you in – “Good evening, Ma’am!” - and hover attentively outside your cubicle. It’s only because there’s a locked door between you and her, that the service isn’t more extensive... When you emerge, she turns on the taps, for you to wash your little white hands, then hands you a folded square of starched linen, to dry them. You toss the once-used napkin into a lined laundry basket, before having a go of the free cologne and hand lotion. Try as I might, I can’t justify the need to open a complimentary comb or toothbrush or nail-file, but I do try to buff up my grubby sandals in the shoe-shine machine. Altogether, a cherishing experience.
On the street, things are less fragrant and lovely. A bare-bottomed child wanders ten yards along the pavement, away from his home. You know what he’s about, because he’s carrying a little pot of water. He flicks his shirt up round his shoulder-blades, and squats over the gutter to defecate, in full view of the traffic whizzing by. He’s no more self-conscious than your dog, on his evening stroll, since, of necessity, the most private of functions is a public spectacle, here. Job done, he makes his way back to the cooking-fire, to rejoin the rest of his family.
Many millions – not only rupees, but US dollars and UK pounds – are invested here. Rich corporations and conglomerates throw up buildings designed on Mars, alien silhouettes on the Mumbai city-scape. At the feet of these gleaming edifices in mirror-glass and marble, the no-lakh housing estates.
Like I said. Contrast.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Bapu and Ba
“Shopping, Madame?” That Monu thinks he’s got my number, but I’m after culture, not retail, today. “No,” I say, “the Gandhi Museum.” His face falls. “Gandhi House?” I stop, one leg in, one leg out of the car. Butter-side-down territory, for sure. If I say Yes, there’ll be two different establishments, and we’ll end up at the one I don’t want. I scuttle back to the thirty-third floor, to get precise co-ordinates from my Best Friend, The Internet. It’s the work of moments. I then have a small doorstep crisis, because, according to Hindu lore, returning home so soon after leaving, allows in evil spirits. You can either dash in and dash out again, five times over the threshold, or, sit down and have a drink of water, as if you’re staying. Either cunning stratagem confuses them. I opt for the latter, hoping that swigging from a bottle counts, and slam out again, complacently. Back in the car, I tell Monu, I've foiled the evil spirits. He’s utterly baffled. This isn't widespread Indian lore, then - clearly didn’t get as far as Lucknow – which tips my Eccentric Quotient over the edge into outright madness. Am thus on sticky wicket from now on...
Two and a half hours later, we pull up at the top of Laburnum Road, Gamdevi. “This Gandhi house street,” says Monu, laconic as ever. I lose all confidence in the enterprise, and want to go home. It’s only because we’ve come so far, that I get out of the car at all. Monu comes with me to the museum door, swatting away street vendors (Do I want to buy a spangly purse? NO.) “Gandhi house,” he points. “I waiting here.” I have no choice.
Mohandas and Kasturba, known to all-India as Bapu and Ba - were betrothed at seven, but their marriage was delayed until they reached the ripe old age of thirteen. Later, Gandhi says this was ill-considered of all parents concerned, but admits that, at the time, he was too preoccupied with new clothes, party food, and a strange playmate, to wonder at the wisdom of early marriage.
Ba was illiterate. Despite years of intermittent but patient teaching by her husband, she died at the age of 64, still trying to master her Gujerati primer. (She has my every sympathy - I have spent hours, myself, drawing Hindi script characters, and it is Jolly Hard. The only thing I’m confident of recognising, without sneaking a look at the answers, in the back of the book, is the word “OM” – and that’s because it’s embossed or embroidered on virtually every wall-plaque or cushion cover from Amritsar to Chennai.) Lettered or un-, Ba stood by him – or at times, confronting the world’s press in his absence, instead of him – all of her life.
Two and a half hours later, we pull up at the top of Laburnum Road, Gamdevi. “This Gandhi house street,” says Monu, laconic as ever. I lose all confidence in the enterprise, and want to go home. It’s only because we’ve come so far, that I get out of the car at all. Monu comes with me to the museum door, swatting away street vendors (Do I want to buy a spangly purse? NO.) “Gandhi house,” he points. “I waiting here.” I have no choice.
Mohandas and Kasturba, known to all-India as Bapu and Ba - were betrothed at seven, but their marriage was delayed until they reached the ripe old age of thirteen. Later, Gandhi says this was ill-considered of all parents concerned, but admits that, at the time, he was too preoccupied with new clothes, party food, and a strange playmate, to wonder at the wisdom of early marriage.
Ba was illiterate. Despite years of intermittent but patient teaching by her husband, she died at the age of 64, still trying to master her Gujerati primer. (She has my every sympathy - I have spent hours, myself, drawing Hindi script characters, and it is Jolly Hard. The only thing I’m confident of recognising, without sneaking a look at the answers, in the back of the book, is the word “OM” – and that’s because it’s embossed or embroidered on virtually every wall-plaque or cushion cover from Amritsar to Chennai.) Lettered or un-, Ba stood by him – or at times, confronting the world’s press in his absence, instead of him – all of her life.
The museum’s musty and sad. This may be on the job spec of all museums, thinking about it. There’s nothing interactive for kids, here, for instance. Everything was pasted onto boards, the day after Gandhi died in 1948, and no-one’s dusted since. Yellowing letters to and from Tolstoy, Eisenhower and Hitler. Black and white photos, quotations from Nehru on Gandhi, Gandhi on Nehru. After our pilgrimage drive, I need to be in here for longer than fifteen minutes, so I write down what Einstein said: “Generations to come, it may be, will scarce believe, that such a one as this, ever, in flesh and blood, walked upon this earth.” I look for Churchill, but, interestingly, in all the panoply of early twentieth century “A”-list celebs, he doesn’t merit so much as a postcard. Serve him right, for calling Gandhi a savage.
Not only was he the Father of the Nation, Gandhi was also the mastermind behind non-violent civil disobedience, famously “prepared to die” but not “prepared to kill.” “The cry of blood for blood,” he said, “is barbarous.” I write this down, too. There’s an American woman, having a sit-down, opting out of the final staircase, but whether she’s overcome by emotion or tired feet, I wouldn’t like to say. She encourages her compatriots, as they pass through, to look at the Tolstoy correspondence, to prove she can do culture, sitting-down.
Only two days before he was shot dead by Vinayak Nathuram Godse, Gandhi said, “If I am to die by the bullet of a mad man, I must do so smiling.... God must be in my heart and on my lips.” (His last words were, “He ram!” (“My God!”) – so he got that bit right.) The assassin’s not honoured by so much as the mention of his name, in the museum, nor does it say, after three floors of non-violence and passivity, that he was executed for his troubles. Monu tells me – or rather, mimes me – in the car, on the way home.
When Gandhi died, the whole of India came to a standstill, plunged into the traditional Hindu thirteen days’ mourning. Sixty years on, his birthday’s still a national holiday, here. His ashes were immersed finally into the Arabian Sea, this January.
It’s the sandalwood, which moves me to tears, at last.
-- Out shopping for souvenirs, we find a small elephant-in-an-elephant, no bigger than a matchbox, but handsome, priced the wrong side of £40. In whitewood, the salesman says, it would be a tenth of the price. Apprentice carvers aren’t allowed to touch sandalwood, until they’ve had a chisel in their hand for more than four years, because sandalwood’s precious. Finer grained, for finer carving – and the fragrance, the exquisite fragrance, which lasts for ever. --
Sandalwood’s what they choose, for Gandhi’s funeral pyre. Love’s last gift.
Monday, April 21, 2008
Mermier Bal Ashram, New Mumbai
One lakh, as they say locally. A hundred thousand, to you and me. That’s how many children live on the streets of Mumbai. In the whole of India, twenty million. Try as you might, there’s no way to make that a comfortable tally. That’s a lot of small people, who don’t know what bedtime stories are. It makes you think.
We go to visit the Mermier Bal Ashram, in Koparkhairane, New Mumbai, home to fifty-five “street children and rag-pickers,” between the ages of four and eighteen. As we stand in the reception area, with boxes of lentils and flour at our feet, boys drift downstairs, to have a look at us. Some of them risk a quick “Hello!” before scampering away, stifling giggles. Whatever their past or future, they’re still just boys.
In 1834, in Annecy, France, Father Pierre Mermier founded a missionary religious congregation under the patronage of Saint Francis de Sales – the Missionaries of Saint Francis de Sales, known as Fransalians. When Father Mermier asked Rome for a mission, he thought he’d be sent to Africa, but the African mission wasn’t to happen for another century. Instead, India was to be his first challenge. In 1845, after a three-month voyage, Father Mermier and his five fellow-missionaries finally landed at Pondicherry, South India. Today, the work of the Fransalians is widespread across India, as well as many other developing countries.
In 1996, current members of the order decided that the street children of Mumbai needed direct, practical help, and set up a charitable trust, the Jan Vikas Society. In 2000, The Mermier Bal Ashram was opened, offering not only accommodation, but aiming to cater for the children’s “nutritional, educational, and psychological needs.” They now have rehabilitation centres for girls, such as the Vaduz Bal Ashram in Panvel, as well as several day centres.
On the wall, by the entrance to the Koparkhairane ashram, their mission statement: “to actualise the individuality of the child and make him a mature and self-sufficient man in his future.” Underneath it, a card reads, “rescue, redress, rehabilitation.” It all seems very grandiose and laudable, and then I look at the skinny-legged boys, washing the floor of the open-sided ground-floor hall, hoping to be those very same mature and self-sufficient men, at some point. “Later, we have Mass here,” explains the Father in charge, waving his thanks to the floor-sweepers.
Collected from railway-stations or bus depots, or just off the streets, these boys have all been abandoned. One of the staff, Vijay, points to the smallest of them, and says, “This boy no know, ‘Here is my house.’ Home here now.” Too small, when he was found on the street, to have any idea of where he came from. The original plan, to re-unite these children with their families, had to be reconsidered, because of the growing number of children abandoned deliberately, now too traumatised to return. Some of them are simply orphans, others have one parent who can’t cope, or can’t afford to keep their own child. If they have a parent, there are occasional trips back, for a brief visit. Otherwise, the ashram’s home.
Upstairs, in the playroom-classroom-dormitory, maybe twenty boys are whiling away the afternoon until tea-time. None of them has shoes on his feet, but this is India: their battered trainers and worn flip-flops are in racks by the door. A couple of the older ones flick tokens across a board, in some souped-up version of draughts. Others have nothing better to do than spectate, or idly throw a ball around. Younger ones scoot toy cars to each other across the dusty floor, absorbed - brmm-brmm would appear to be substantially the same in Hindi, as far as I can tell. It’s at once so familiar, yet so other. None of the boys looks at us, hovering in the doorway, but they all know we’re here.
Vijay’s worked at the ashram for eleven years, so he’s seen the first rescued children grow into young men. They learn English, he says, calling a boy over. I ask him his name. He points at his own chest. “I name Akash.” “And, how old are you, Akash?” I reckon he’s about eight. “I thirteen,” he says. He has cheeky eyes and an irresistible grin, the Essential Boy, in my book. Vijay says that, as well as lessons, they’re taught a trade – carpentry, or tailoring, or welding – so that they can find work, when they leave at 18. The society funds itself, in part, by running a printing business, so the boys can learn this skill, too.
Up another floor, more dormitories and offices, and a computer-room, with half a dozen PCs, swathed in plastic against the permanent seeping dust. It’s holiday-time, now, but the boys still have scheduled IT lessons. On the “Holiday” timetable pinned to the wall, I notice both morning and afternoon slots labelled “STUDY,” and can’t help but think of some boys of my personal acquaintance who’d take a very dim view of that...and of the “9.00 p.m.: Good Night!”
It has to be said, they look happy enough – the carers are very caring, the boys are fed, they’re off the street, they’ve got a real hope of staying off the streets, and, most importantly, they have each other. It’s still not what you and I understand by “childhood,” though.
As we leave, a boy hurtles past us, on the stairs, furiously ringing a hand-bell in every doorway, with a summons no-one will ignore. It’s time for tea.
We go to visit the Mermier Bal Ashram, in Koparkhairane, New Mumbai, home to fifty-five “street children and rag-pickers,” between the ages of four and eighteen. As we stand in the reception area, with boxes of lentils and flour at our feet, boys drift downstairs, to have a look at us. Some of them risk a quick “Hello!” before scampering away, stifling giggles. Whatever their past or future, they’re still just boys.
In 1834, in Annecy, France, Father Pierre Mermier founded a missionary religious congregation under the patronage of Saint Francis de Sales – the Missionaries of Saint Francis de Sales, known as Fransalians. When Father Mermier asked Rome for a mission, he thought he’d be sent to Africa, but the African mission wasn’t to happen for another century. Instead, India was to be his first challenge. In 1845, after a three-month voyage, Father Mermier and his five fellow-missionaries finally landed at Pondicherry, South India. Today, the work of the Fransalians is widespread across India, as well as many other developing countries.
In 1996, current members of the order decided that the street children of Mumbai needed direct, practical help, and set up a charitable trust, the Jan Vikas Society. In 2000, The Mermier Bal Ashram was opened, offering not only accommodation, but aiming to cater for the children’s “nutritional, educational, and psychological needs.” They now have rehabilitation centres for girls, such as the Vaduz Bal Ashram in Panvel, as well as several day centres.
On the wall, by the entrance to the Koparkhairane ashram, their mission statement: “to actualise the individuality of the child and make him a mature and self-sufficient man in his future.” Underneath it, a card reads, “rescue, redress, rehabilitation.” It all seems very grandiose and laudable, and then I look at the skinny-legged boys, washing the floor of the open-sided ground-floor hall, hoping to be those very same mature and self-sufficient men, at some point. “Later, we have Mass here,” explains the Father in charge, waving his thanks to the floor-sweepers.
Collected from railway-stations or bus depots, or just off the streets, these boys have all been abandoned. One of the staff, Vijay, points to the smallest of them, and says, “This boy no know, ‘Here is my house.’ Home here now.” Too small, when he was found on the street, to have any idea of where he came from. The original plan, to re-unite these children with their families, had to be reconsidered, because of the growing number of children abandoned deliberately, now too traumatised to return. Some of them are simply orphans, others have one parent who can’t cope, or can’t afford to keep their own child. If they have a parent, there are occasional trips back, for a brief visit. Otherwise, the ashram’s home.
Upstairs, in the playroom-classroom-dormitory, maybe twenty boys are whiling away the afternoon until tea-time. None of them has shoes on his feet, but this is India: their battered trainers and worn flip-flops are in racks by the door. A couple of the older ones flick tokens across a board, in some souped-up version of draughts. Others have nothing better to do than spectate, or idly throw a ball around. Younger ones scoot toy cars to each other across the dusty floor, absorbed - brmm-brmm would appear to be substantially the same in Hindi, as far as I can tell. It’s at once so familiar, yet so other. None of the boys looks at us, hovering in the doorway, but they all know we’re here.
Vijay’s worked at the ashram for eleven years, so he’s seen the first rescued children grow into young men. They learn English, he says, calling a boy over. I ask him his name. He points at his own chest. “I name Akash.” “And, how old are you, Akash?” I reckon he’s about eight. “I thirteen,” he says. He has cheeky eyes and an irresistible grin, the Essential Boy, in my book. Vijay says that, as well as lessons, they’re taught a trade – carpentry, or tailoring, or welding – so that they can find work, when they leave at 18. The society funds itself, in part, by running a printing business, so the boys can learn this skill, too.
Up another floor, more dormitories and offices, and a computer-room, with half a dozen PCs, swathed in plastic against the permanent seeping dust. It’s holiday-time, now, but the boys still have scheduled IT lessons. On the “Holiday” timetable pinned to the wall, I notice both morning and afternoon slots labelled “STUDY,” and can’t help but think of some boys of my personal acquaintance who’d take a very dim view of that...and of the “9.00 p.m.: Good Night!”
It has to be said, they look happy enough – the carers are very caring, the boys are fed, they’re off the street, they’ve got a real hope of staying off the streets, and, most importantly, they have each other. It’s still not what you and I understand by “childhood,” though.
As we leave, a boy hurtles past us, on the stairs, furiously ringing a hand-bell in every doorway, with a summons no-one will ignore. It’s time for tea.
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Goats and Gourds in Goregaon
We go to Mega Mall, in Goregaon. (Monu’s idea: “Very nice, nice mall. Very famous.” – It’s been open less than a month, but already world-renowned, according to the Fount of All Mumbai Knowledge.) The piped muzak hits us harder than the wall of heat, as soon as we set foot out of the car. We stop at Costa Coffee, to gird our retail loins, but have to move tables almost instantly. Two men, quaffing tea at the adjacent table, are talking over each other so aggressively, I can’t hear what I’m thinking, and Mr Roland’s pearls of wisdom are more than lost on the desert air. It sounds like a real bust-up, next-door, but their shouting-match is punctuated by laughter, and they’re sharing a toasted sandwich, so I don’t think it’ll come to blows.
The mall’s like malls the world over – polished floor, stretched escalators, wall-fountains, glossy shops. Since we’ve not come four and a half thousand miles to stroll through BhS, or Pepe Jeans, or Watch It, we head for the hypermarket in the basement, more at home, sifting through aisles of sandalwood soap and stainless steel plates, than racks of over-priced t-shirts at Ted Lapidus.
We buy some more Bollywood classics, for the long summer evenings. Tom Hanks and Will Smith are going to have to try pretty hard to entertain us, when we get back, after a year on undiluted sequins and sitars. We choose five films with English subtitles. They all appear to have the same story-line, but the pictures on the front are different, and anyway, there are only seven plots in the world, what do you expect? Fewer than that, if you’re Barbara Cartland. (A propos, she’s very big here, the Queen of Romance. More than twenty titles from the Cartland Canon are on sale, at teeny-weeny Jaipur airport. I buy “Lessons In Love,” which is every bit as good as you’d imagine. First printed in 1974, this version, the Rupa Paperback Edition (New Delhi), came out in 2007. Whoever said romance was dead, should know, it’s alive and well and living in Rajasthan.)
Our trolley’s nothing, if not eclectic. We buy a fruit-bowl, some fine-liners, plug-in mosquito repellent, bleach, a cotton kurta for me, and some vests for Mr Roland. (Local wisdom, contrary to common sense, says it’s cooler, with a vest on. - We’re talking temperature, here, not fashion.) We collect an armful of toiletries, including a bucket of leave-in conditioner for blonde hair, shamelessly pressed on us - well, on me - by a depressingly petite raven-haired assistant. Mr Roland’s no longer a prime target for Elvive Reps, I’ve noticed. They don’t cater for curly hair, for some reason.
In the party-goods aisle (which includes top-of-birthday-cake fire-bombs - get that one through customs, if you can), congratulations streamers nestle next to anti-bacterial face wipes for teenage spots, and naphthalene pellets for cockroach-prohibition. Whether it’s deliberate antithetical juxtaposition, or someone gormless on shelving, I don’t know, but the randomness of it makes me laugh out loud, to the consternation of three assistants in a gaggle by the checkout.
We hit the greengrocery section, to stand in front of glistening heaps of greenstuff we don’t know how to pronounce, let alone cook. We buy a mango weighing more than a pound, which costs thirty pence, and a pineapple for thirty-five. The root vegetables look like they were grown on Mars. We fall gratefully on one we at least recognise, but it’s labelled “Beetroot” in big cheery letters, so we feel less accomplished than we might.
How many types of gourd can you name? – I thought as much. Me, too. Here, there are dozens of them, as big as pumpkins, as small as peas. As I’m queuing, to get my after-thought tomatoes and grapes weighed, I see a lady with a bushel of ridged gourds, in her trolley, so I ask how she cooks them. Indians – can I just say here? – are never less than generous with their time and knowledge. I’ve never yet asked a question, and received less than an encyclopaedic response. (fyi: peel it, chop it, fry it with lots of onions, garlic, tomatoes, and “your usual masala” and Babu’s your uncle. I love most that she thinks I’ve got a “usual masala.”)
The meat and fish section’s Behind Closed Doors – or at least, behind flaps of industrial polythene, to protect innocent herbivores in the vicinity. We’re thinking, spaghetti Bolognese (well, we’d go out if we wanted chicken tikka, wouldn’t we?), so I pick up a pack of meat. The label says “Goat Mince.” I put it down again. The truth is, this particular frontier’s been crossed, dozens of times, in restaurants, since our arrival, so I take a deep breath, and pick up the pack again. See how native we’re going?
In the car, on the way home, Roland points to a flock of goats, tumbling along the pavement-rubble, as if they were playing tag. I reach for the camera, charmed, then gasp, remembering what's in the bag in the boot. I look out of the other window, hurriedly.
We watch Om Shanti Om (only 160 minutes long - I might have slipped into a coma for some bits of it, but the plot’s so haphazard, it doesn’t matter) - and eat our goat pasta special. It’s disgusting. – No, just kidding, it’s lovely, especially with mushrooms. If you don’t believe me, the leftovers are in the freezer for emergencies, if you should call round on spec, one night next week.
The mall’s like malls the world over – polished floor, stretched escalators, wall-fountains, glossy shops. Since we’ve not come four and a half thousand miles to stroll through BhS, or Pepe Jeans, or Watch It, we head for the hypermarket in the basement, more at home, sifting through aisles of sandalwood soap and stainless steel plates, than racks of over-priced t-shirts at Ted Lapidus.
We buy some more Bollywood classics, for the long summer evenings. Tom Hanks and Will Smith are going to have to try pretty hard to entertain us, when we get back, after a year on undiluted sequins and sitars. We choose five films with English subtitles. They all appear to have the same story-line, but the pictures on the front are different, and anyway, there are only seven plots in the world, what do you expect? Fewer than that, if you’re Barbara Cartland. (A propos, she’s very big here, the Queen of Romance. More than twenty titles from the Cartland Canon are on sale, at teeny-weeny Jaipur airport. I buy “Lessons In Love,” which is every bit as good as you’d imagine. First printed in 1974, this version, the Rupa Paperback Edition (New Delhi), came out in 2007. Whoever said romance was dead, should know, it’s alive and well and living in Rajasthan.)
Our trolley’s nothing, if not eclectic. We buy a fruit-bowl, some fine-liners, plug-in mosquito repellent, bleach, a cotton kurta for me, and some vests for Mr Roland. (Local wisdom, contrary to common sense, says it’s cooler, with a vest on. - We’re talking temperature, here, not fashion.) We collect an armful of toiletries, including a bucket of leave-in conditioner for blonde hair, shamelessly pressed on us - well, on me - by a depressingly petite raven-haired assistant. Mr Roland’s no longer a prime target for Elvive Reps, I’ve noticed. They don’t cater for curly hair, for some reason.
In the party-goods aisle (which includes top-of-birthday-cake fire-bombs - get that one through customs, if you can), congratulations streamers nestle next to anti-bacterial face wipes for teenage spots, and naphthalene pellets for cockroach-prohibition. Whether it’s deliberate antithetical juxtaposition, or someone gormless on shelving, I don’t know, but the randomness of it makes me laugh out loud, to the consternation of three assistants in a gaggle by the checkout.
We hit the greengrocery section, to stand in front of glistening heaps of greenstuff we don’t know how to pronounce, let alone cook. We buy a mango weighing more than a pound, which costs thirty pence, and a pineapple for thirty-five. The root vegetables look like they were grown on Mars. We fall gratefully on one we at least recognise, but it’s labelled “Beetroot” in big cheery letters, so we feel less accomplished than we might.
How many types of gourd can you name? – I thought as much. Me, too. Here, there are dozens of them, as big as pumpkins, as small as peas. As I’m queuing, to get my after-thought tomatoes and grapes weighed, I see a lady with a bushel of ridged gourds, in her trolley, so I ask how she cooks them. Indians – can I just say here? – are never less than generous with their time and knowledge. I’ve never yet asked a question, and received less than an encyclopaedic response. (fyi: peel it, chop it, fry it with lots of onions, garlic, tomatoes, and “your usual masala” and Babu’s your uncle. I love most that she thinks I’ve got a “usual masala.”)
The meat and fish section’s Behind Closed Doors – or at least, behind flaps of industrial polythene, to protect innocent herbivores in the vicinity. We’re thinking, spaghetti Bolognese (well, we’d go out if we wanted chicken tikka, wouldn’t we?), so I pick up a pack of meat. The label says “Goat Mince.” I put it down again. The truth is, this particular frontier’s been crossed, dozens of times, in restaurants, since our arrival, so I take a deep breath, and pick up the pack again. See how native we’re going?
In the car, on the way home, Roland points to a flock of goats, tumbling along the pavement-rubble, as if they were playing tag. I reach for the camera, charmed, then gasp, remembering what's in the bag in the boot. I look out of the other window, hurriedly.
We watch Om Shanti Om (only 160 minutes long - I might have slipped into a coma for some bits of it, but the plot’s so haphazard, it doesn’t matter) - and eat our goat pasta special. It’s disgusting. – No, just kidding, it’s lovely, especially with mushrooms. If you don’t believe me, the leftovers are in the freezer for emergencies, if you should call round on spec, one night next week.
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