Posted by Adam on March 24th 2007
Bombay
For a weekend trip it was decided that we go to Mumbai, or before 1994 what was called Bombay. Mumbai is about a 4 hour drive from Pune. Hitesh, one of my coworkers has family living in Mumbai so the plan was to meet up with her and she would show us around. The problem was that as we were getting ready to leave, we found that Hitesh, wasn’t going to make it. Now by this time, Harith and I had already arranged hotel accommodations. After a brief discussion, we decided that the trip was still on, that we would rely on our drivers as tour guides. For the most part, this turned out to be a good idea. On our way there, I just happened to read an article in the local paper about the country; 80% of the population lives on $2 (88 Rupees) or less a day. This statistic stuck with me all day. The road to Mumbai from Pune was relatively uneventful. After six tunnels, two toll booths, and one bathroom break, we were there.
The first place we stopped was the Gateway of India. I refer to this as a tourist trap in both the figurative and the literal sense. The moment we stepped out of the car we were swarmed. The first was a man whose role in my estimation was to introduce people just like us to ‘A Holy Man’. The Holy Man was an older fellow who followed a few steps behind. Once introduced the Holy Man proceeded to tie a bracelet to my wrist. Overwhelmed and under prepared I went along. He painted something on my forehead, gave me some white pills* and assured me that I would now have good fortune. As bizarre as this sounds, this was an appropriate introduction.**
After having lunch at the The Taj Hotel we went onto a few other sites around town that were recommended. Our cabbie turned tour guide ended up lacking certain skills often desired for such a role namely, knowledge of the city and English. Needless to say we spent a good deal of time in the back seat of his car driving around. This did allow for some time to for us to observe more of the driving behavior. The street signs specifically I found amusing. One in particular I liked displayed: “Please don’t ignore traffic signs.”
* No, I didn’t take them
** Later on I learned Jerry was at least one other person in the group had “good fortunes” that day.
Interesting,I learned some new things from that article. You got a good knack for writing!