Namaste Mumbai!

We have arrived in Mumbai. It was a long and exhausting flight from Los Angeles, but we decided to explore the city in the early hours of the morning anyway.

In the darkness of the early morning, the city's squalor is overwhelming. The air is filled with the smell of garbage and burnt wood and we are stepping over the mummied bodies of families sleeping in the streets. There are sleeping mummies everywhere--under the eaves of shanty sheds, in the recesses of storefronts, and across the breadth of the pedestrian bridge.

Shanty sheds line the avenues of Mumbai. Gray storefronts of corrugated iron offer little to excite the imagination. The streets are nearly empty and devoid of activity.

As the morning sun breaks through the haze of the Mumbai sky, the city reveals itself in an immersion of colors, smells, and sound that define Mumbai's personality. Drab storefronts are hidden by the sharply contrasting colors of hurrying women in their saris. The traffic symphony of horns blares through the city streets as brightly colored and elaborately decorated trucks and rickshaws channel through the deadlock.

Beside me a man cuts mangos, melons, and bananas, readying them for making juice. Another man strings together garlands of flowers, which he then proceeds to hang on pictures of Krishna in front of many storefronts.

I watch in amazement as the squalor fades; the city is awake and its beauty shaken from its slumber.

Namaste Mumbai! Namaste India!



Bennett has fallen ill. It seems the Biryani does not agree with him. He is in hell.

The Biryani is coming out from both ends. Unfortunately for Bennett, the spices are emerging through his nose, making the pain more intolerable. Our poor Bennett is ill.

Posted at 03:00AM Dec 26, 2006 by D Bums