Colablog

We spent the last few days exploring South Mumbai, splitting our time between the areas called Fort and Colaba.

Our hotel is in Fort, so day one was spent wandering around our neighborhood. After the aforementioned film mishap, we found ourselves in a labyrinthic bazaar, stretching easily six miles each way. The bazaar was partially indoor, partially outdoor, with aisles of every good imaginable-- spices, produce, chocolates, toys, stationary, machine parts, textiles. Yotam and I had a running joke about the fact that each road was basically all one type of product; we referred to them a the lace district, the key district, the rubber tube district, etc. The entire market was an assault on the senses: smells both good and bad, penetrating heat and humidity, people of all sorts approaching us to buy things we most definitely don't need (most everyone who caught me even glancing at their goods would greet me with an enthusiastic "yes, madame"). Everything is riddled with complications; language barriers have surpassed our expectations, we apparently suck at not getting ripped off, we don't know where anything is really. Exhaustion overcame us, and we came back to the hotel and took a euphoric, air conditioned, three hour nap.

Today was a lot more successful. As Yotam puts it, the learning curve is high. We even smell like curry already. Our morning was spent doing some intensive people watching from our window, which is in a pretty commercial part of town. We spent a lot of time watching this little boy pedal strung-up flowers to taxi drivers and storefronts, many of whom gladly bought and hung them.

Then we head out for the Gateway of India, which we were misdirected to and instead found ourselves at a strip of fancy banks. Eventually, we figured out where we were, which happened to be near one of three synagogues in Mumbai, a bright blue building with a handful of police officers on guard. We went in and found a man sleeping on one of the pews, and out of curiosity asked him if there would be a Friday night service. He kind of laughed and said we should come back at 7:30. Why not, right?

After wandering around for a bit longer, we found some men playing cricket in the park and sat down to rest and watch. Neither of us really understand cricket at all, but some British guy happened to come sit next to us on the tree trunk we were on and gave us a very, very convoluted explanation. I kid you not, he began by saying "well, when you're in your out, and when you're out your in." It only got more confusing from there but it was nice to chat with someone who spoke the same language as us, even though it was basically a lot of mumbo jumbo.

Back on the hunt for the Gateway of India, we were lucky enough to be sidetracked by three smallish art galleries, one of which had an apparently notable cafe called Samovar, at which we stopped for lunch and met a very, very loquacious movie producer who told us what was essentially his life story. Anyway, the galleries were really lovely to see, and were in many ways like galleries in Oakland (except way hotter). Stylistically there are similarities between Contemporary Mumbai art and certain American art, but to see these styles depicting Indian topics was definitely a pleasure.

Finally, just as our clothes were basically entirely soaked through and our feet throbbing from walking and heat, we found the Gateway of India, which is a magnificent structure similar in style to the Arc de Triomphe. The area was really touristy and people were really aggressively trying to sell us stuff (our favorite attempt was a guy trying to sell us postcards, maps, or "maybe a different kind of map" as he pulled out a bag of weed from an envelope). Nonetheless it was worth seeing and we headed home to de-moisten ourselves before going to temple.

At 7:30 we arrived back at the synagogue. The policemen were still there, and as we walked in we were given the official security questionairre (which was, "You am Jewish?"). The synagogue was organized Sefardic style with the bima in the middle, and orthodox style with the women separated from the men. I watched Yotam from the balcony, among a few Brooklyn chabadniks, an Israeli or two, and a few Indian Jews. The service was pretty casual considering the people in attendance, with the men kind of chatting and wandering around during the service. It was interesting to see a culture we're more familiar with in a country we're so foreign to, but as non religious Jews we didn't exactly feel at home. It was definitely worth experiencing, though.

At the end of the service, I said Shabbat Shalom to one of the women I was standing with. She corrected me by saying Shavua Tov. This is how, eventually, Yotam and I pieced together that it is actually Saturday, not Friday. Talk about being disoriented.

Oh! One last thing to add to this long long post. We finally, after much difficulty (because for some reason you're not supposed to issue sim cards to foreigners) got our phone to work . If you need to reach us for some reason, our number is +917738651722.

Mumbai is hot, cool, and hot.

Wow. Day One. I'm not going to make a full post until tomorrow, because in all honesty we didn't do much today (so hot, tired, and disoriented) BUT if there's one story worth telling, it's this:

Yotam and I, while walking over to the Victoria Terminus this morning, happened upon a crowd of people struggling to see some goings-on at a park across the street. We figured that, Mumbai being the film capital of India, we should check it out, so we made our way to the other side of the road (not a simple task, mind you, in a city with nearly patternless traffic) to find Mumbai's School of Art and Architecture, where there appeared to be some kind of film-shoot going on. There was a separation between the onlookers and the crew, but there didn't seem to be anything enforcing people from moving in closer, so we did, and found ourselves standing next to a young Indian couple. Yotam asked

"What's going on here?"
"Filming."

This was obvious to us already, because of the lighting set up, the woman giving orders through a megaphone, a food van, and a couple trailers. So Yotam wanted to know a little more

"What's being filmed?"
"A movie."

The woman with the megaphone directed her voice towards us, though she was speaking Hindi. The guy we were talking to, who now seemed like he was probably an actor in the film, turned to Yotam nonchalantly:

"We're filming a movie. And you're standing in the frame."

Whoooops!

Arrived!

We just got the hotel in Mumbai. We're both very exhausted from the flight, but excited to finally have a tangible experience of India and what lies ahead for us.

Mumbai is like no city I've ever seen. Our only impression of the city so far is from the window of the tiny taxi cab that we got at the airport driving across the city to the hotel. It's 4am, there are people sleeping all over the streets. Young men sleeping shirtless on small towels on the sidwalk. Entire families sleeping in the same way. And cab drivers strewn over their hoods and windsheilds as if they were hit by their car and fell asleep there. Storefronts, shacks, and buildings of all sorts are pushed together on top of eachother. It's warm and humid even at this hour. My glasses instantly fogged when I stepped out of the airport doors.

We're at the hotel now, which seems nice enough: air conditioner, wifi, two clean beds, bottled water. It's located in a part of the city called Fort, which we think is near quite a few things that we want to do and see.

Today's the Day

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Video Blog!

We haven't left for India yet, as you can see, but we're posting a test video for the blog because were so excited. I'm even dressed in my India clothes already.

More to come from the subcontinent...