Jock's TravelBlog Because sometimes I go places

Mumbai

First working day in the country. I am acutely aware that I have a distorted view of everything I see. For the majority of the time I am here, I am a member of a privileged class. We have a car and driver (no sane first time visitor would want to drive here). I have no sense of anonymity. I cannot blend into the crowd. I cannot just be. I am the Visitor. I am the Rich American (only by comparison of course). It's like being a minor celebrity, and I don't know how comfortable I am about that. I would love to just hang out with my teams and chat and joke with them, and see the India they know. Of course that won't happen, I don't have that kind of relationship with them. They've just met me.

The drive into the office is interesting. You start out on main roads. A variety of shops and residences go by, then things start to change. The streets become narrower, and more crowded. The car makes a right hand turn, that seems extra harrowing because they drive on the right, and all my passenger instincts are wrong. Then the streets are packed with roadside stalls. Food vendors, places you can make phone calls, a little stationary and photocopy place, etc.; the full gamut. Everything packed together. This is India. I and My Boss are fascinated my a little group of stalls were men are getting shaved with straight razors. My Boss wants me to get a shave. I am by no mean scruffy, but I am the only one of the two of us for which this is an option.

Suddenly the car makes a turn. How did the driver know? Was their a street sign? He stops halfway down the street. Apparently this is the place. There is a stairway and a pair of little elevators. One arrives, and a little old security guard is driving the elevator. Whenever the gate to the elevator is open, a little tinny tune is played. It eats it's way into you head. I wonder if it has driven the man mad. Up we go. The walls are dingy. Most public walls seem to be. This is a harsh environment to keep external things clean. Suddenly there is a transition, and we come up on what looks like a modern office building anywhere, except that everything is just a little bit more cramped.

One thing we are not is wanting for food. We are guests here, and they see to it we are well fed. Seemingly, every kind of food is here. For lunch we get sandwitches with the crusts cut off. So cute, almost anachronistic. Yummy though. That evening My Boss, T, and myself go out to dinner. We decide to check out the revolving restaurant in the Ambassador hotel. We had passed by it the previous day, and it looked like a dump. At night the building looks magical. At night everything in Mumbai looks different. All the lights and ornaments that look out of place during the day, come out into their own at night.

It turns out to be a Chinese restaurant. Indian food is the baseline, that is what is here. That is what has always been here. So many restaurants I see, seem to server the food from somewhere else. That is what is exotic. Exotic has lost some of it's meaning here. For a revolving restaurant it seems to move at a breakneck pace. You feel the motors rumble below you. They clearly believe that food is better if it is moving, and they want you to be sure that you can tell it is.

It is the most unusual Chinese food I have ever had. I know what I get in the US isn't authentic, but this seems even more removed. It's filtered though a different lens, and tailored to different tastes. It was rather good -- at least what I ordered, I don't think My Boss fared as well.

So far each night, have gone for a walk on the seafront. I am brimming with energy, I need to burn some of it off. Nor do I want to just sit in my hotel and watch Hindi movies, and InidiPop music videos. Though both are quite entertaining. There is a perceptible texture to this place, I feel it on my skin when I step out of my western oasis, and out onto the street. I am only here for a short time, and this is a nut I know I can never crack, but I have to try...