Renata in India: Mumbai and Goodbye

These past two months have been quite a ride for sure. It feels surreal to be going home. I said goodbye to the LUM interns and the WLF staff a week ago and now I’m saying goodbye to India. I have about 12 hours to kill at the Bengaluru airport, so I figured I might as well use this time productively and write my last blog.

On the 19th I officially turned 19 years old. Mr. Masagi gave me the gift of a long workday so I ended up missing the birthday dinner my friends had planned. I admit I wasn't very happy but Emma saved the day by buying me some delicious cake and later Nadia and I made some tiramisu with mascarpone made of buffalo milk. It was quite a treat to our taste buds.

I wrapped up my work with WLF last week. On my last day I had a chance to represent WLF at an NGO mela (‘fair’) at Christ University that showcased NGOs involved in social, humanitarian, or environmental work. It was very interesting to see an Indian university and to interact with the students. Here students have classes nonstop from 9 to 4 and all classes are held in the same classroom. People with the same major have every class together and they can only take courses within their major. There are 80-100 students in each class. Students rarely get a chance for one-on-one interaction with professors and no discussion-based courses are offered. How different it is from a Dartmouth education!

As a parting gift I gave Mr. Masagi a framed photo of me and Liz (since we have been the only American interns) with a short letter addressed to him, his family, and the WLF staff written underneath the photo. I’m not sure what he thought of it but I know that the rest of the office staff appreciated it and they even hung it up on the the wall in the office! I asked them to send me a copy of the book when finally published.

For my last meal in Bangalore I had Goutam’s tasty egg noodles and for a scrumptious concord pudding with ice cream I went to our favorite Italian place with Anu and Emma. I miss these two ladies so much already! Then Emma decided to go out for the night and Anu had to leave before long as well, so I spent the rest of the night in the apartment with packing, listening to Maroon 5 on top volume, and whining quietly about spending my last couple of hours alone. A taxi took me to the airport by 4am and my flight arrived to Mumbai on Saturday morning.

I planned my Mumbai trip as a little treat/vacation to conclude my time in India. Shefali, a friend from Dartmouth who lives in Mumbai and kindly offered to host me, was waiting for me at the airport when I arrived. Her mom, uncle, cousin, grandma, and dog were incredibly nice and welcoming. They really made me feel at home, safe, and comfortable. I was so relieved to not have to constantly worry about my health and safety and where I was going, where I looked, who I was talking to, who I looked at, who looked at me, what rickshaw drivers did and said, and who was trying to cheat me. It truly felt like a real vacation, a welcome break from stress.

My observations on Mumbai v. Bangalore

Compared to Bangalore the Mumbai climate is really humid and I soon found that even five minutes after showering I was dripping sweat.
Rickshaws in Mumbai have proper meters and they are not allowed to cheat you. They are much more professional with a lot less negative attitude than those in Bangalore.
Mumbai is much more cosmopolitan with people from all walks of life. No one stared at me here.
In Bangalore cows, dogs, chicken, pedestrians, kids, cars, trucks, buses, rickshaws, and motorbikes all have equal rights to the streets. Traffic is often jammed and the infrastructure visibly lags behind the pace of the city’s expansion. In Mumbai no cows can be seen on the streets and the public transportation is much better organized. But man, the trains can get incredibly crowded! I thought it was just an exaggeration, but no, people literally hang out the doors, holding on with just one hand and a poorly placed foot. I was not surprised to hear that many fall off and even die. Even in the ladies’ compartments the crowd can be suffocating. Mumbai needs more trains!
If I thought Bangalore was a city of contrasts, Mumbai is even more so. Dirty, overcrowded slums on one bloc; Sharukh Khan’s house on the next. Center of nightlife for college students on one corner; fisher folk’s shacks on the next. Old, foul, decaying residential complexes side by side with newly built, large shopping centers.
There is more trash in Mumbai than in Bangalore but at least I didn’t have to walk in it. The beach was particularly disgusting in the evening with garbage that accumulated there only in the course of one day!
In Bangalore people only speak Kannada and many understand neither English nor Hindi. In Mumbai it seems that everyone knows Hinglish and consequently a sufficient amount of Hindi and English to get by. People also speak Marathi, the local language in Maharashtra, but it doesn’t limit communication like Kannada does in Bangalore.
The dress code is much more relaxed in Mumbai and people can often be seen wearing western clothing. Shorter skirts and sleeveless tops are totally acceptable for example

I could manage Bangalore alone, but I don’t think I could ever handle Mumbai by myself. There is just too much going on all at once!

So, what all have I seen and done in Mumbai?

Shefali’s family is Christian, so I accompanied them to church on Sunday. The service was in English and it was quite modern with a band and a Texan pastor. Throughout the service I was thinking a lot about how similar Christian teaching is to all the other world religions. The more I contemplate religion from a spiritual point of view the more shocking it seems to me that devout believers do not see that the underlying principles of their religion are not unique to their faith and in fact unite all world religions. How different the world would be if we all expanded our horizons and made place for the unfamiliar in our hearts!

On Monday we met up with Queenie (another Dartmouth ‘16) and watched Chennai Express, Sharukh Khan’s newest movie, after having Indian Chinese food for lunch (it was spicy but very tasty!) Queenie and I thought that Chennai Express was pretty terrible, especially for an SRK movie, but Shefali liked it. She still wouldn’t stop humming the songs to herself! I was upset about the gender stereotypes that the movie so blatantly reinforced, but I guess most Bollywood films are guilty of that anyway. However I thought it was really cool that the national anthem is played in the movie theaters in India before every screening. On Thursday night I saw Sharukh Khan’s house!! I seriously contemplated just standing there in my sari and pulling a Kajol scene so that he would have to come out and make me the lead actress in his next movie. I’ve seen 5.5 Bollywood movies in the span of this one week: Chennai Express, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, Om Shanti Om, Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, Black, and half of Dil To Pagal Hai. That’s a solid 16-17 hours of film watching. Time well spent!

Shefali and I went on a tour of Mumbai with a tour bus (Mumbai Darshan) on Tuesday but we were sorely disappointed. The tour turned out to be for a very different crowd (i.e. villagers who have never been to a shopping mall, or a movie). I did at least get a glimpse of the Nehru Science Center and a good shot of the Gateway of India. In the evening we got “mehndi” (henna on the hands and lower arms). It is so beautiful!!!

Shefali’s mom is an amazing cook and I had very good Indian food this whole past week. So good in fact that I gained back all the weight I managed to lose this summer. All the scrumptious sweets Uncle got for me did not help my case much, but I do not regret having tasted them all. It’s not every day that I get an unlimited supply of Indian sweets at my disposal! I particularly loved gulab jamun, barfi and malai kulfi (Indian ice cream).

I’ve been weighing the pros and cons of purchasing a sari since the LUM girls bought theirs. Finally I came to the conclusion that it’s worth the experience, even if I won’t wear it more than once or twice. What I did not realize is that sari shopping is exhausting!! After much searching (read 7-8 stores, if not more) I finally found a sari I liked at a reasonable price. It is royal blue with golden patterns. I would never have been able to do it without Shefali’s mom’s help! Then we bought some cheap matching jewelry, took my blouse to the tailor, and bought a matching petticoat. On Friday night I attempted to learn how to wear it but man it’s not easy!

Thursday morning Uncle took us to Kanheri Caves, a world heritage site in a national park just outside of the city. The caves were very ancient and there were many nicely preserved Buddhist sculptors and stupas. The bodyguard sculptors were enormous! Shefali was outraged that as a foreigner I had to pay more for the entrance fee (100 Rp instead of 5 Rp). I told her I was used to this, as this has been the case at nearly every place I visited. But she is right about the racism aspect in this policy, since if she were an American citizen no one would ask her to pay the foreigner fee, as it all depends on perceptions of foreignness. People from other south Asian countries also wouldn’t have to pay more. I guess it would be more just if everyone, regardless of skin color or language had to show a passport.

Friday we met up with Queenie again and went shopping for souvenirs. These girls surely know how to bargain! I would never have been able to get the prices as low as they could. Then we ate at the Leopold Café, which is in a very nice part of the city, and then took the train home where we watched some more movies.

In other news, my Hinglish has improved significantly (meaning I marginally increased my hindi vocabulary). I also picked up a couple of English phrases that Americans never say, like “Have you reached home yet?” or “toastie” for a grilled cheese, “crisps” for chips, or "scrum" for yummy and "cringe" for that's awkward. Most of this is from Emma but I'll just call it India anyway.

Now the real question is, what am I going to write my Tucker reflection essay about? This summer I have gained insights on a wide range of topics, including perceptions of body image, beauty, religion, food culture, intercultural communication, independent urban living, attitudes toward the environment, and humanity in general. I already dread how difficult it will be to organize my thoughts in a coherent manner...

In conclusion, India has taught me a lot and has made me richer in many ways. I’m deeply grateful to everyone who has made this experience possible for me and I hope to continue learning about and experiencing unfamiliar cultures in the future.