Twelve hours in Mumbai

So I had 12 hours to spend in Mumbai (why? Don't ask...). I arrived in the central train station at 9 a.m., and had to be back to catch my 24-hour train to Delhi by 9 p.m.

Naturally, I knew nothing about Mumbai save for what I'd read in Suketu Mehta's book and the 11/26 coverage, and (of course!) what I'd seen from watching Slumdog Millionaire umpteen times as it played on loop on an interminable Emirates flight. Images of Muslim-Hindu riots, a smoking Oberoi Hotel and slums. SO well-informed.

So:

9 a.m. The train station is a zoo. People sit on overstuffed bags, force their way up crowded stairways out of the station. I stow my bag in a locker-room type place, haggle over a city map and head out into blinding sunlight.


9:15 a.m. Stop at a corner to get my bearings, buy paan from a paanwalla from Lucknow. Leave with betel-stained teeth, little comprehension of where in the city I am.




9:30 a.m. Ocean! At Chowpatty Beach. Glorious in the already stultifying heat. Wade through warm water to amusement of passersby. A young couple perches, legs swinging, on the seawall just above a trash heap where a family has set up a house.







10 a.m. Stop to watch a cricket match at the Police Gymkhana. Still don't understand how this game works.



11 a.m. Made it to Kalbadevi. Wander through crush of markets, small stalls with vendors vending cotton, jewellery, toys, fruit juice, electronics. Crawford Market is a quiet respite from the chaos, with neatly stacked heaps of fruit gleaming in the bizarre, grey, gothic building. Adjacent pet market reeks.



12 p.m. Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (formerly Victoria Terminus) is imposing stone. What's odd isn't that the enormous gothic building is out of place; it's that they seem entirely natural in a city by Portuguese and British flavours. The place is packed, but the nearby shady park is closed to the public. WTF?




1 p.m. The Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (formerly Prince of Wales Museum--are we noticing a trend here, courtesy of Bal Thackeray et al?) is closed on Mondays. Argh. But the nearby Jehangir art museum offers air-conditioned respite from the crush of activity and heat on the street. And some gorgeous b&w photos.


3 p.m. Gateway of India isn't nearly as impressive as I had hoped. Just lots of tourists, lots of people looking to scam tourists. Rahhhh colonialism.





3:30 p.m. Taj hotel isn't looking too shabby, under the circumstances. Clientele frighteningly posh.


3:45 p.m. Vendors can't figure out why I laugh at their oversized oblong balloons. Sigh.



4 p.m. Less than 100 metres from India Gate is a collection of ramshackle lean-tos next to a beach that seems to be used both as fishing dock and public toilet. Um, minor problem? (the slum itself, however, is the most friendly place I've yet encountered in this city)






5 p.m. Wander through colourful and fascinating mazes of Colaba, end up in a navy base. Feel distinctly unwelcome. Manage to grab public bus going...somewhere.



6 p.m. End up in Nehru Park in Malabar Hill after bus ride to the north of the city, and then back. The park is crowded with young families, elderly people on strolls, young couples.


8 p.m. Try to walk back to train station, get hopelessly lost (how is that possible? Map made them look so close), take most unreasonably expensive cab in the history of the world.


9 p.m. Back at station and manage to almost miss train thanks to scramble at luggage check. Luggage attendant finds this hilarious. Still think I should charge for entertaining entire subcontinents with foreigner antics.