My flight from India to Ethiopia, and then to Ghana was for lack of a better word… eh. There were delays, there were unconfirmed and canceled tickets (*groan*), and there was turbulence. BUT, there were also some amazingly helpful and fantastic people.

There was the twenty-something guy going to Paris, who let me get ahead in line during security check, because he said his company was paying for his ticket, and I had more to lose if I missed my flight. There was the man sitting next to me, who whenever I’d open my eyes during the never-ending turbulence would pat my head and say, “Not over yet, go back to sleep.” There was the woman from Abidjan who insisted I go visit her and said that she comes to Accra often and would love to come see me during my stay here. And there was the guy from United Nations, who as soon as the plane touched Ghanaian ground, declared, “She has made it, ladies and gentlemen. The Indian lady has officially arrived in Africa!”

I have a phone and a home now. By the time you read this, I’ll have Internet as well. I’m all set to work.

I’m in Africa.

What am I doing here? Apart from fulfilling my lifelong dream of living in Africa, that is? For the next couple of months, I’ll be working in Accra, Ghana (and surrounding regions), on issues related to child rights. My initial assignment is for a few months, after which I get to decide again whether I want to be based in Asia, Africa, or North America.

Since I’ll be traveling extensively in and out of the country (Ghana) for the next few months, the blog postings may be a bit random, though I’m trying very hard to make sure that doesn’t happen. I will, of course, be posting about my experiences and adventures as a foreign correspondent in a country that’s totally new to me.

Oh, and for my to-do-before-I’m-30 list, that’s one new country crossed off.

I’m headed off to get culture-shocked. Updates soon.

Notes from my Mumbai journal continued. See Part I here:
http://www.mridukhullar.com/journal/2007/12/23/mumbai-i/

Touching all senses

I’m woken up daily by the sound of the doorbell. For the middle class in Mumbai, there’s a person to take care of everything—there’s the breadwala, the doodhwala, the sabziwala, the garbagewala, the laundrywala, and other assorted “walas.” They all arrive bright and chirpy every morning. They wake me up from my sleep and it’s their faces on my mind as I drift back into sweet slumber.

The smell of fish is something I never get used to. I live right opposite the docks, and each morning and evening, the smell of fish seeps its way through the tiny openings of the window sill. There are days when I’m woken up by the stench. Everything then, to me, reeks of fish—my clothes, my bed, my skin. I drown it out by using obnoxious amounts of deodorant. And it’s only when I leave the city that I realize the smell isn’t stuck in my clothes. It’s stuck in my head.

As I walk down the street opposite the Victoria Terminus, I spot swamis—destitute and forlorn—sitting by the side of the road, waiting for someone to stretch out a palm, so they can predict a future.

I reluctantly open up my hand for one such astrologer. He thinks I’m interested in knowing about my life. The truth is, I’m more interested in knowing about his.

Looking at my palm, he tells me I will get married for love (as opposed to having an arranged marriage), live abroad and have a very successful career. He stresses repeatedly that I’m blunt, independent and obsessive, which are bad qualities for relationships, but great qualities for career success. You’re too restless, he says. You haven’t even settled in one place that you’re ready to move on to the next. You keep searching in the hope that you’ll find perfection and peace. But you don’t. And you won’t. Because peace isn’t outside of you.

He gives me advice on how to avoid the quickly-in-quickly-out syndrome in my relationships and fills me in on my lucky numbers, days and birth stones.

For Rs 51, I get my life story. And his.

Narayan Joshi is in his mid-thirties, has a wife and two kids and has been practicing palmistry for the past fifteen years. “Why do you do this work?” I ask, expecting some deep, philosophical bullshit about how he’s helping people find their destiny.

“Survival,” he says. “I’m not equipped to do anything else. My grandfather did this, my father did this, and now I’m doing it.” He worked in a hotel for a little while, where visitors could get their fortunes told, but he was soon made redundant and found his way back on to the street. “All I’m doing is looking at your palm and telling you what you already know,” he says. “But human beings need that reinforcement and faith.”

“You care about people,” is the last thing he says to me. And this time, he’s not looking at my palm.

Bollywood calling

After three weeks in the city, I haven’t yet spotted a celebrity and I’m quite bummed by that. I ask Siddharth if he’s ever seen any celebrities wandering about. “All the time,” he says. “It’s really no big deal. You’ll be at a red light, and Salman Khan will be in the car next to you.” He says this without any hint of excitement. In fact, he’s quite bored. He’s had this conversation with visitors to the city several times before.

Another friend later tells me why this is. “We’re so used to having celebrities walking around here that it’s no more a novelty,” he says. “The person you’re going to brag to has probably seen a dozen more stars than you have.” They’re not obsessed with Bollywood, he says. Yet, when Aishwarya Rai and Abhishek Bachchan, the latest Bollywood sensations get engaged, it’s front page news in the national dailies.

Each time I walk down Fashion Street, one of the top garment markets in the city, vendors compete for my attention, barking various variations of “I show you Rani jeans. Not want? How about Kareena jeans? Sania top?” I soon make it a hobby to guess which starlet will inspire the next brand of jeans.

But for every one person who’s spotted a celebrity, are ten who pretend to have. I’m sitting with my friend Shruti at her jewelry show one evening, when a woman with an expensive phone and fake accent walks in. “What man, effing Shah Rukh Khan didn’t show up for the damn party,” she says, fully aware of the many pairs of eyes on her. Shruti smirks. It’s quite possible that effing Shah Rukh Khan didn’t show up for the damn party, but it’s also equally likely that the whole conversation has been fabricated for the benefit of the people at the show. That’s another thing about Mumbaikers. They like throwing around names.

Sri, a twenty-something actor, originally from a small village in Haryana and now in Mumbai to become the next big thing, tells me very proudly that he works out at the same gym as John Abraham. He may not have the bulging biceps, the six-pack or the lean body, but he works out at the same gym as someone who does. He’s fit by association.

Like many in the city, Sri came here six years ago to “make it big” in the movies. So far, he’s done one television soap and has been offered a small role in a foreign English movie. Sri started out well, and at the peak of his career, fielded calls from the likes of Yash Chopra. But the film that convinced him of his star status fell through even before the shooting started, and he regrets having rudely rejected the small role Chopra offered him. Now he calls Chopra’s office every week but isn’t given the time of day. Sri, because of his choices, is once again a struggler.

We’re having dinner at the house of my friends Nik and Raj one day, and Sri comes in with news. He’s been offered a big role in a high-budget movie. The problem: he’ll be required to play the part of a eunuch.

“You’re an artist,” Nik advises. “Take the role. And be the best eunuch there ever was.”

Sri thinks about this for a while.

“Nah,” he finally decides. “Screw art. I want the glamor and money of the hero.”

Nik knows of what she speaks, having worked on the production side of the television and movie industry for years. It’s been a case of all or nothing for her, too. With her, I visit a production house that’s starting the shoot of a new television series. Nik’s been looking for work for months, but nothing has materialized. This time however, she knows she’ll get in. She’s come with a “contact.”

Sure enough, as soon as she’s done name-dropping, we’re offered cookies and tea. Nik doesn’t have a resume on her. She doesn’t talk about her past accomplishments. She doesn’t need to come up with reasons why she’s the best person for the job. But Nik is hired. Because she’s come with the one thing others don’t have—the personal reference of the producer.

I’m still whining about not having spotted any celebrities, so on my last day in the city, Nik and Raj take me over to see the next best thing—a bungalow that’s often used as a movie set. I won’t see the workers, but I’ll sure as hell see their place of work. In order to get in, Nik and I make up a story about how we’re checking out the location, and Nik with her industry knowledge is able to smoothly talk her way into meeting the owner. He’s not too keen on renting out the place again, saying that movie crews with their heavy equipment damage his property beyond repair. But he agrees to give it to us for a day, since we’re only doing a short film for the Cannes film festival.

“You didn’t bullshit too much, did you?” a worried Raj asks us as we walk smugly out to where he’s waiting and get into a cab. He’s just found out that the bungalow is rigged with cameras.

Mumbai’s cab drivers, like the cab drivers in most cities, are an accurate reflection of the people who live here. They’re smart, they’re in a perpetual state of hurry, and they help out when they see someone in trouble. The small spaces in their cabs are their own—decorated with photographs of their families, humorous ornaments or religious shrines.

I get out of one of my last cab rides in the city, and can’t resist the temptation. “Bhaiya,” I say. “Have you ever had any Bollywood stars sit in your cab?”

“Oh no, they have their own cars,” he replies. “But I did see Anil Kapoor at Film City last week.”

In early 2007, owing to a personal problem that seemed like a massive disaster at the time, but would prove to be a temporary setback, I made a hasty decision, packed up everything I owned and moved to Mumbai. As much as I loved the city, I found the arrangement not quite working for me. I was desperately homesick, work seemed sparse, and I had finally found the courage to face up to the massive disaster back in Delhi. So I made another hasty decision (the right one this time), re-packed everything I owned, and moved back.

I spent about a month in Mumbai. Despite the setbacks and indecision, it was a fabulous month, full of exploration, meeting new people and being intrigued by a city that I’ll always remember fondly.

I’m sharing here a few notes from my Mumbai journal.

–

Mumbai is movement. A transition. A place where people come to follow their dreams, mend their broken hearts, escape from orthodox families. It promises freedom, new beginnings, and another chance at life. It’s a city that never sits still. Like the people, it’s constantly changing, constantly shifting, taking on new roles. As the business city. The entertainment city. The sin city.

If you’re on a boat in the sea one day and see no warm bodies around you for miles, you might begin to wonder where all the people are. What is this huge population that writers and poets speak of, you may think. Head over to the Andheri local train station. They’re there. All twelve million of them. You can smell their sweaty underarms, feel their wet shirts pressing against your skin, inhale the air they’ve breathed out. The trains are packed to every inch of their capacity. Watching people disembark is like watching someone stick their hand into a beehive and a swarm of bees rushing out. I become one of those bees each morning on my visits around the city.

One morning, I head over to a magazine stall to get the latest issue of my favorite magazine. “Khallas!” the guy says somewhat over-enthusiastically. “Khallas?” I ask confused, and he explains that he means he’s out of stock. “You’re not from Mumbai, are you?” he laughs. “You speak such pure Hindi. No one talks like that here.” Of course, this very pure Hindi is what gets me robbed blind by the cab driver at the airport as soon as I’ve set foot in the city. I hand him a Rs. 500 note, which he slickly slides under his hand and says, “Madummm…. You only give me Rs. 100.” I’m not dumb, but after making quite the scene, I’m forced to give in and pay him more.

Within days, I have successfully managed to forget the rules of grammar and learn the localized Hindi. Like everything else in Mumbai, the language is meant to save time and communicate fast.

My friend Siddharth explains this to me. “Let’s say you have to travel to Bandra by train and you go to the ticket counter and say Bandra. The person at the ticket counter will then ask you whether you want a return (two-way) or single (one-way) and you’ll tell him your preference. This wastes a lot of time. So seasoned travelers, when they want to travel both ways say ‘Bandra return.’ However, if you only want to go one way, you’d only say Bandra, and the whole dialogue would ensue again. So, instead, for a one-way ticket, you say ‘Bandra half-return.’ This saves several precious moments.”

Similarly, a half glass of tea from a friendly roadside vendor is called a “cutting chai.” But if you’re fond of the stuff enough to want a full glass, you won’t just ask for a full glass of tea and waste everyone’s time. You ask for a “double cutting chai.” A friend later says a three-fourth glass of tea is a cutting chai. I play it safe. I say “ek chai.”

By the time I’ve completed my month in the city, I manage to get the hang of the local slang and have blended in quite nicely. My butt isn’t pinched. Cabbies don’t rob me blind. The waiter at the restaurant where I dine no longer asks me if someone will be joining me. With my newly-learned bad Hindi, I become one of them. I am no longer the foreigner in this fast-paced city of foreigners.

Alone in the crowd

Every time I feel the need to lose myself in a crowd, I head over to a café on Colaba Causeway, the Juhu beach, or the Lokhandwala market. In the moments I crave solitude, the rocky stretch of the Marine Drive is my favorite spot to sit, observe and write.

I realize I’m in Mumbai, a city of tall buildings that are as close to each other as is physically possible, and hence cannot expect any shred of privacy, even in my home. I dutifully draw the curtains before I change my clothes or practice dance moves to loud music.

My neighbors though, have no such qualms. Through my open windows, I spot a young woman stitching clothes on a sewing machine, a middle-aged man sprawled on the floor in front of his television, and an elderly couple who, every evening between four and five p.m., pull back the shades, look outside, and talk to each other over steaming cups of tea.

As I lie in my bed and read at night, I can hear the sounds of the paan chewer spitting out the red seeds on to the street, the overflowing of water from someone’s tank, children arguing with each other, and the noises of buses, cars and motorbikes on the road. They’re a constant reminder that even in my solitude, I’m never truly alone.

I wander around the docks one evening, the smell of fish enveloping me, aware of the curious gazes of fishermen and women that last much longer than they should. Boats are scattered across the waters, and act as homes for many fishermen who go out for days at a time to catch fish from the deep waters.

On one such boat, a fisherman bathes. A bucket of water sits in front of him, and he pours the water with a tumbler over himself. In the split second that I spot him and he catches me looking, we share an embarrassed laugh. It’s not everyday that his bathing is interrupted by a chick with a camera. I wave a quick sorry and goodbye to him pretending I don’t see that he’s standing in nothing but wet trunks and soap running all over his body.

Space is a precious commodity in Mumbai, as renters who pay India’s highest rates will tell you. But more than anywhere, here I find a sense of personal boundaries, a wanting of privacy and space to claim as your own. We may draw our curtains when we want to get intimate, we may pretend the couple who drinks tea each evening can’t see us cooking in our own kitchen, we may even bathe in public. But that one meter of space around us is our own. And when invaded and embarrassed, we do what we best know how: we laugh.

–

To be continued…

There is a point in every trip when the reasons for taking it become unimportant. When time stops, space ceases to matter, and the past and future become one.

For the fifteen days I spent in McLeod Ganj, there was only the here and now.

I have tried several times now, each time unsuccessfully, to arrange the events of the trip in some kind of chronological order. But each time I close my eyes, I get an assortment of random images– prayer flags fluttering in the wind, a crystal tied to a piece of string circling around a piece of paper, the face of a freedom fighter on a guitar, the shape of a Chinese momo sitting on the hand of a Tibetan monk, a slice of cake for my farewell, corrected spelling mistakes on a notebook in a small Indian tea shop.

I’ve decided against trying to make sense of it and putting it all together. Some things are better taken raw.

**

I get to McLeod Ganj at 8.30 in the morning on a bus, woken by a nun who speaks no Hindi or English, but waves her arms ecstatically in the air, clearly happy that we’ve finally arrived and expecting me to be equally thrilled. I am, until I realize it’s raining hard and I’ve got no umbrella, raincoat or motivation on me.

At the hotel, I’m checking in when I see an Australian woman with a book tucked under her arm—Conversations with God. I’m feeling pretty anti-social, but for some reason, she smiles at me, and not knowing what to say, I nod at the book. “It’s good,” I say.

I don’t expect to ever see this woman again, because come on, I’m not about to admit to anyone I’ll ever see again that I’ve read a book with the word “God” in the title. (If you must know, the guy at the railway station on my last trip had a very limited inventory of English titles and this looked like the only one that might be half-decent enough to get me through the train ride. Plus, it was cheap, and I was nearing broke.)

She spots me two days later, while I’m working on a computer at the Internet café in the hotel. “Oh, it’s you!” she says delighted. “The Conversations with God girl!” I look around quickly to make sure no one I know is around. This woman could be damaging to my reputation.

But, life isn’t always simple. I keep running into the woman repeatedly and she continues to refer to me as The Conversations with God girl. The name sticks, and I look for sand to bury my head in. I don’t find any.

**

I go to visit Sonam, a monk I met last year and had quickly become good friends with.
“Same bag?” he asks.
“Same bag,” I reply.
He spots my business card.
“Same bag, same business card, same you,” he teases.
He’s right about the first two.

Sonam has changed, too. His English is much better. In fact, he’s no longer taking classes. English lessons have been replaced by computer classes. The TV is the same, but there’s a new DVD player and a new cell phone. And he’s just returned from a 4-month visit to Assam, where he was working, so that he could make enough money to be able to spend the rest of the year in Dharamsala.

There is a new occupant in the house—a rabbit.

Two friends and I volunteer to teach Sonam’s friends English while their regular teacher is away.

**

I watch little Tibetan children, smile at each one as I pass by them. Last year, at the same place, my friend had crooned over every tiny face, confiding in excited whispers that all she could think of was taking one of them home. A few weeks later, she’d sent me photographs of the little kids she’d followed around. I’d e-mailed back, “This is your biological clock. Tick-tock, tick-tock.”

Now, as I almost click “send” on my e-mail to let her know how I’ve spent almost a full day admiring beautiful little faces, I laugh at the memory. This was just too easy. I’m going to get slammed.

**

Ruud is teaching the monks English. They’re saying, “He came before I did.” They repeat it over and over, unable to get it right. “He came before I did. He came before I did. He came before I did.”

Ruud lets out an exaggerated sigh. “Story of every woman’s life,” he says. I snort water out of my nose.

**

Everyone has their fleeting moments of peace, their favorite zones, their tune-out areas. Mine, I discovered, was not in the prayers or temples, nor in the spectacular views of the mountains, cold wind slapping my face, nor in the waterfalls. It was walking on the Kora, wild hills and trees surrounding me and colorful prayer flags flapping in the breeze. While walking along the Kora, no matter what I was thinking or how depressing the situation in my head seemed to be, I was happy.

A year earlier, I had envisioned walking down this path with someone I cared about. Introducing someone to the beauty and the nuances I saw in the route. Sitting with someone on the bench that overlooked the town and knowing that the person who sat next to me appreciated it as much as I did. Walking along the path everyday, I wondered if I’d ever get that chance. I didn’t know how close I was.

**

Me: “I can’t believe you offered the monks drugs!”
Him: “I didn’t offer. I just took ‘em myself. And you! You almost got a gay monk to come out of the closet!”

Almost. And he’s ordained. It doesn’t matter anymore.

**

C and I spend a lot of time poking fun at religion—him his, me mine. “I don’t trust anyone who wears these religious t-shirts with Om written on them,” I say. “You don’t have any such t-shirts, do you?”

He shakes his head. “Nope.”

The next day, we’re having dinner at the monks’, and there’s an obnoxiously cute baby wearing an orange t-shirt with different sized Oms all over it.

“Ooh, he’s so cute. Isn’t he cute?” everyone seems to be asking.

I lean over and whisper conspirationally to C. “Oh, he’s cute alright. But I’m sorry. I just can’t respect a baby who wears the Om t-shirt. You understand, don’t you?”

He grins. “I understand.”

Last I heard, he wanted one of those Om t-shirts.

**

After breakfast, I come back to the hotel to check my e-mail where I run into Mike and Carola. They’re planning to go to Bhagsu, but on hearing my plan of walking the Kora, they decide to join me. The four of us—Mike, Carola, David and I—take off but on reaching the starting point, realize the Dalai Lama is coming right through here. We decide to wait– and we do so, for the next two hours in the hope of saying hi to the great Lama himself.

Two hours later, amidst tight security, a car pulls out, him in the front seat, hands folded. I have my camera ready to shoot him, but in the two split seconds in which I see him, I completely forget about my camera, taking a photo of absolutely nothing. For those two seconds, I’m focused on the Dalai Lama and the Dalai Lama only. Jon does better. He manages to get a picture of my head. (And one of the Dalai Lama, too.)

**

The men want to watch Spiderman 3, and no matter how much I protest that Spiderman is not even a real superhero (let’s face it, unlike Superman, he wasn’t born with his powers), they neither extend an invitation, nor cancel their plan, leaving me to fend for myself.

A few days later, we’re sitting in a small theatre, which is the size of a bus (and the seats are actual bus seats), and watching a movie Mike has picked out for us. Before the movie starts, there’s a promo for Spiderman 3.

“See?” I whisper to C. “He’s not a real superhero because he lies to his girlfriend!”
“That’s insane,” he says. “We all lie.”

**

I went to live in a nunnery for about two or three days. It was quiet and peaceful, the nuns I met there were nothing short of amazing, and I was deeply moved by their enthusiasm for their religion. If I were a bigger person, I would tell you that it changed me for the better, that I saw the world with different eyes, that I learned something. But I’m a small person. Tiny, in fact. I was bored out of my friggin’ mind.

**

Photos from the trip: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mridu

**

Currently reading: Time Was Soft There by Jeremy Mercer