India Day 4: Bombay Stock Exchange, Dinner & Desserts On The Town

Today was a packed day.  We began with three hours of lecture.  I will have to ask how lecture works for our Indian friends, but I know for us as American students, we don’t do well sitting and paying attention for 3 consecutive hours.  So this was a bit difficult.  It was, however, very interesting for the most part.  Professor Ambulkar discussed small and medium enterprises, which basically translates to entrepreneurship in India.  Being that my major is management with an interest in entrepreneurship, it was right up my alley!  We viewed a short video about Mirakle Couriers:  This is an Indian courier service which employs deaf people.  From what I understand, those who are handicapped in India are nearly unemployable, and when they do receive jobs it is usually menial work which earns very little and does very little to boost the individual personally.  The young man who pioneered this business is a graduate of The H.R. College of Commerce here in Mumbai.  This is the college which is hosting us while we’re here.  He is brilliant in my book for doing something so forward in a country that is set so strongly in tradition and customs.  I thoroughly enjoyed the lecture and would love to hear another!

This was followed by lunch at the college.  Every day we find more to talk about with our student hosts.  I know it will be hard to leave them on Friday.  They have helped make our first days in India wonderful and we are all very grateful!  

After lunch, we visited the Bombay Stock Exchange which is the largest exchange in Asia.  There, we listened to a lecture about the exchange, its importance, and how it interacts with the economy here.  We walked through our first actual metal detectors to get in.  There are many metal detectors around town, though none of them ever function (at all—as in, they aren’t even powered on).  Once inside, we went straight to the 18^th floor which is the only floor we had clearance to be on.  We listened to the lecture and then went to see the view from the cafeteria.  It was a nice view of the surrounding area and we took a few pictures.

Following the view, it was time to leave.  Well, this became and adventure.  About half of us got into an elevator which was sent on its way, without one of the officials (of which there were two) in it with us.  We didn’t get out when we were supposed to, and did get out when we weren’t supposed to…On The Wrong Floor!  Remember, we don’t have clearance to be anywhere except the 18^th floor.  After much deliberation and finger pointing, we got ourselves back into the elevator and to the correct floor, where our guides/officials still had not arrived.  A couple of minutes later, they joined us and led us down some stairs, through a renovation area of the building, and down a very long corridor.  Now, normally, this wouldn’t be too big a deal, except that the entire journey was led by a couple of our students who had no idea where to go.  One would think that it might make sense with two guides, for one to lead and the other to follow.  I guess that isn’t done here?  I was not alone in my irritation in the lack of guidance on this particular outing.  I feel like, despite our lack of clearance, we could have found ourselves into anywhere in the building.  The security clearly isn’t very secure.  Additionally, I snapped at Divya (one of our host students) when she called us all stupid for not getting off the elevator.  I felt badly later for being rude to her, though I was truly irritated and I tend to show my feelings.

After this, we walked to Starbucks (I know, Starbucks in a foreign country?).  Everyone was excited for the free wifi, which didn’t work for us.  But the coffees and drinks were a touch of home after a few days of nothing home-like at all.  It was nice, actually.  And a bit funny as a couple of people have been asking for Starbucks since the plane touched down.  So, we finally got our Starbucks, and in the first Starbucks constructed in India.  We visited with our hosts and gave them some good laughs at our banter and excitement over silly things.  We were behaving entirely as typical Americans in a coffee house, and I think they were quite amused by it.  At one point a few of us from each group (Indian and American) were waiting to use the ladies room.  Ria and I were just cracking up and being our very loud selves.  When I returned from my turn in the restroom, I made a typical American comment:  “Whoever designed that bathroom should be shot!”  The girls thought that was just so funny!!  All kidding aside, it’s entirely true.  The Starbucks is the largest I’ve ever seen.  It’s something like 4500 square feet.  Yet somehow, the bathroom has one door which opens all the way to the wall of the next door, which opens to just clear the toilet.  Through the first door is a space large enough only for the sink.  Very poorly designed, Starbucks!

So, you might think that after all of this in one day, we’d be finished, no?  Nope, not even close!  We followed our coffee break by desserts in a small patisserie.  I’ll have to find out the name of the dessert we tried.  All of the students have been talking about it since we got here.  In a small fried shell were little beadlike somethings (they sort of resembled cous cous in appearance) in a sweet and spicy liquid.  It was interesting.  I didn’t love it, and didn’t really care to eat another, but it wasn’t bad.

Finished yet?  Nope.  A couple of the guys have talked about nothing but wanting to eat MEAT for like a day and a half!  Meat, please give me meat!  Much of the country here is vegetarian, and nearly all of our meals have been either largely or entirely vegetarian.  The best way to describe it is that we are used to very substantial meals:  Big burgers, sandwiches, burritos, things we can hold in our hands and take big juicy bites out of.  Here, people eat small bites, often with a piece of bread in their hand.  We have eaten a lot of rice with various sauces, some with a tofu-like protein source, often with beans of some sort.  While most everything we’ve had has been tasty, it’s just not quite satisfying after multiple meals in a row.  Well, our hosts were obliged to appease the gents that were so adamantly requesting Meat.  Dinner was very good.  I had butter chicken which is entirely unlike the butter chicken one might find at an Indian restaurant in the US.  Our table received its food, the next table received its food, and the third table (which included one of the boys who so desperately needed some “bland meat”) waited and waited for their food.  They eventually left and went to McDonald’s nearby in order to get chicken sandwiches.  I actually felt very badly for them.  It was very late, and they were hungry.  We were all tired and simply ready to eat.

All in all, it was an interesting day.  One of the students asked me today how I like India and Mumbai.  I wasn’t very sure how to answer her as I don’t really know.  Despite the fact that people are people over all and have in common basic needs and wants, the city is so very different in almost every way from home.  It’s big and loud!  I took some videos to try to capture the sights and sounds, though I don’t feel as though you will get the picture as I had hoped you might.  I’ll have to post those later as I don’t have enough wifi access to do it now.  I’ll try to see if I can get one, maybe during our walk in the morning, which better captures the craziness and uniqueness of this place.  I think my response will still take a couple of days to figure out.

My feet are still swollen.  A friend of Ria's lives here in India and happens to be a doctor.  I asked her about it and she said to elevate them as much as possible.  I'll keep doing that and hope it gets better.  They didn't get bad today until this evening after a long day of walking.  One day at a time, though I sure would like to know why this is happening.

Until next time, keep on burning…

 The Gateway to India built when the British left India

 Ferries

 This monkey on Elephanta Island had the soda, then opened the bag of chips and started chowing down

 Zohra is one of our student hosts, and she's such a sweetheart!  We're both Harry Potter fans!

 One of the carvings at The Elephanta Caves

 Selfies with the bull--in the middle of the sidewalk

The slums from the outside.  We weren't permitted to take photos from inside.

 My terribly swollen feet :(

India Day 3: Dharavi (Slums)

Today was a bit alarming for most of us.  We started the morning with two lectures (we are here for class, after all).  We then had lunch, and boarded the bus for a 30 minute drive.  Thirty minutes turned into an hour (Mumbai traffic is 2 times worse than Atlanta!), and we arrived at Dharavi (“The Slums”) for a tour.  I, as many Americans would, expected dirty chaos in a residence called a slum:  Well, it was dirty.  In fact, I consider the living conditions atrocious and entirely appalling.  What we found, though, in addition to terribly unappealing conditions, were people who work very hard, who are unashamed of what they do and where they live, and who, according to our professors here, are entrepreneurs.  I guess by the definition of the word that it’s true.  There are businesses run and money made by way of recycling the abundant garbage and aluminum here, making leather, soap, clay pots, and numerous other jobs.  I wish I could have taken pictures as attempting to describe this place simply won’t give you a realistic impression.  I’ll try to describe it, though, as best I can:

We walked over the train tracks on a bridge, where we stopped and our guide asked us questions about our thoughts and impressions of the word “slum.”  We each gave our thoughts, typical responses were voiced:  Dirty, messy, disorganized…And then we walked down the stairs into another world.  There were flies in the air about halfway down the stairs.  Immediately we saw stray animals, mud, and garbage in a heap on the street, and people going about their business in dirty, dusty clothes.  There were many people and little sanitation.  At first it looked much like the streets we’d come off of.  Quickly though, we turned onto a side street, and saw what we were there to see.  Two story shacks with steep ladders from the first floor to the second, siding made of corrugated aluminum sheets:  The first floor was a work space.  They were little factories amongst a million people, and they were only as big as about a large room in one of our houses in The US.  Above the work spaces are what I can only assume to be living spaces.  We didn’t see inside, but the footprint is only as big as the shop below; and families with children living there in these cramped quarters.  There was garbage everywhere:  In piles and in pieces, around small dumpsters or trash cans, and in the middle of nowhere.  Children played in it or looked for items among the trash; for what I can’t imagine.

I was careful not to let my long, conservative skirt touch the ground most of the day as the ground was covered in dust, dirt, and liquids of unknown origin.  There were holes in walks, piles two stories high of items from plastic to trash.  People made their way through the already narrow sidewalks, made narrower still by the piles of debris.  Among all of this were goats, usually tied to something, which would be used for food.  I just wanted to pet them all and milk some which were badly in need.  It seems that while there is a verbal respect for life here, the animals we’ve seen are extremely ill-kept.

We eventually walked through the residential area of the slum.  A man sat outside his home on the dirty, broken sidewalk washing himself.  We turned a corner to a dark and dank narrow ally-like walk with low overhead and hanging wires.  Cracked paths led us by curtain doors, all closed, which led to tiny living spaces.  Above, by way of narrow ladders, were more living quarters.  Again, trash floated about, children played, and people went about their business.  Though, interestingly enough, the locals here love foreigners.  They are fascinated by us and often stop what they’re doing to watch us walk by.  This happened often in The Slum. 

We are told that the residents, who also work in Dharavi, are there of their own free will.  That they choose this work.  One reason is that many of them have families in the rural areas and the members in the slum make more money there than they can where they come from.  For this reason, they work here and send money home to their families.  Another reason is that they often don’t have the skills to work in some other areas of the city.  Some people would have us believe that despite these reasons, that it’s still a choice.  Apparently some of the people who live here are very wealthy, and it costs very much to stay in a space.  I believe it as I have no reason to doubt it, and the people giving us the information live here…what do I know?  However, as an American with so many people living in poor conditions, and knowing that there are so many social programs available to them (admittedly nearly all of them are sorely flawed—but they do exist), many of us had a very hard time understanding why anyone would choose to live in those conditions.  The response when any of us asked about this is that they are entrepreneurs, that this life is a choice, and that if you have no other options, it works just fine.  A bit ironic, I agree.  We were also told to look at the people and to see if we saw anyone unhappy.  While I didn’t see anyone particularly unhappy, I also didn’t see anyone who looked thrilled or excited about their situation either.  They work hard, long days, in extraordinarily horrid conditions, for little pay.

Despite all that we saw, I do have to say that not once, even for a second, did anyone ask for even one handout.  This is quite impressive as the begging in Mumbai has been absolutely overwhelming.  Never have most, if not any, of us seen anything quite like the beggars here.  There was a woman just tonight holding an infant who simply followed me around for 5+ minutes.  I couldn’t believe it.  She just assumed because I/we are foreigners we will give her handouts.

I concluded this overwhelming day with dinner at the hotel followed by a walk around the block with two group-mates (Ria and Zaheer).  We visited a dress shop around the block from our hotel.  Let me tell you, Indian wedding attire is BEAUTIFUL!!  It was so worth going.  Z is trying to surprise his sister with a gift for her wedding.  Ria modeled the styles he liked for him to see what the might look like.  Oh my goodness are they just exquisite!  

My feet are still very bad at the end of the day.  Elevation tends to help, though.  I just have to do the best I can.

‘Til tomorrow….