Arriving at the airport in Mumbai. The flight was easier than I expected. We had a brief wait in Kuwait only about four hours. Not bad compared to Sally and Jake.
Okay, okay. I'm avoiding it. Arriving in Mumbai was horrific.
The first thing I experience when I start to move through the slow line for customs is the familiar smell of diesel and gasoline. But it's strong. At 5 in the AM, going through customs and finally getting a taxi after standing in line with others for the prepaid taxis. The next smell is the acrid smell of burning garbage. I am asked over and over again if I want a taxi, a ride, a car. I can feel peoples' eyes on me, but I don't meet their gaze because that will mean they will ask me for money which will mean that I have to go through a moral self assessment of myself and my culture and my whole fucking relationship with the universe and it's five in the morning.
Soon I realize that I'm surrounded by men, only men. For every one woman there must be fifty men, 100 men. I know we are not supposed to make eye contact, but I am aware of their gaze. I want to grab John's hand. Tuck my arm in next to his elbow like I always do. But that has a different message here. I just don't get it, but then there are already a lot of things I don't get, and I haven't even left the airport.
Okay, I say to myself. It's just the airport. Airports are not always pleasant, and this one I'm seeing at 5 AM. Things will improve on the drive to the hotel. After all, we are staying at the Hotel New Bengal. We were smart and made advance reservations.
But the drive is not easier. It is worse. There are no lanes in India. Just cars and trucks and motorcycles and other strange vehicles merging in and out of an endless flow of horns and more horns. Even at 5 AM there are vehicles everywhere. I look out the window and I see dirty, filthy streets covered in trash and so much dust. And living in this filth are so many people. People of all ages sleeping on sidewalks, under cement bridges, everywhere. And there are people walking. I have no idea to where they are walking at 5AM, but they are walking. Some seem to be just walking. The expression on their faces is empty. Later I will recognize it as hungry, surviving expressions.
Women wrapped in colorful fabrics squat in the dirt engaged in stirring, folding or some other activity. Men squat in little circles talking. Many people are just standing around looking at the cars passing by them. They are all surrounded by dusty, old corrugated metal walls. Some have small concrete rooms with dark, doorless entrances. Sometimes I can see inside them. On the floors I see a piece of fabric, some clothes, and much more dirt. You know that feeling you get when you walk barefoot through dry dirt and you just ache to dip your feet in water and rinse away all the dryness. I felt it all over.
And the smells kept coming. All of them are unpleasant and overwhelming. I've always known I had a sensitive sense of smell. In these conditions it was my worst handicap. There was no way to avoid it. Covering my nose only meant I would taste it instead. And I didn't want to taste these smells.
I thought, 'these are the slums. It can't be like this everywhere'. I longed for the comfort of my hotel room. A respite from the smells and the noise and the people everywhere. When we pulled up to our hotel, my heart sank. There was a sign out front that said "Hotel New Bengal", but it looked nothing like a respite from the busy road. It looked just like everything else. We are on a budget and this was described as a budget price hotel. Things are a bargain in India, but not hotels in Mumbai, I guess.
The reception to the hotel was a row of boys most likely between the ages of 13 and 19. The oldest boy was behind the counter, ready to check us in. As he looked for our name, I hoped it would not show up. That somehow, there were two "Hotel New Bengals" in Mumbai, and we were delivered to the wrong one. The one we were supposed to be delivered to had a plush lobby with shiny marble floors and glittering brass hardware. Nope. This was it. Mr. and Mrs. Pit-cherrr would be sleeping in room 209 tonight.
I could go on about the room, the shower, the filth, the smells. I could go on about it all, but the bottom line is that I was completely overwhelmed. I sat on the hard bed, looked around the room and more importantly, this incredibly foreign world I was in and I began to cry. I cried big, frightened tears. I cried myself to sleep and I was thankful that I was tired, so I would cry less.
Morning. As all mornings do, it brought some relief. There was that first waking moment, when it hadn't registered where I was and I only felt the blankets around me and John next to me. Then the whole memory of the night before came screaming back into my head and I began to cry some more. I felt really trapped. I had no idea how to escape all the noise and smell and relentless eye contact. I envisioned myself hiding in hotel rooms for the next six weeks. SIX WEEKS. What have I gotten myself into?
The next few days were a series of attempts to navigate through Mumbai. We waited for two hours in the foreign tourist line at Victoria Station and had an informative conversation with a few more seasoned travelers.
Victoria Station. From a distance you see its beauty- the details in the construction, the shape against the sky. Up close it is run down, in need of repair, surrounded in dirt, trash, rubble and people. John quoted a statistic to me that every day 2 million people move through Victoria Station. The day we were there was no exception. It was in front of it that John nearly had his wallet stolen from a boy and man pickpocket duo. In that day we also managed to eat and buy some clothes. I suddenly felt a strange affection for the Hotel New Bengal. It was a bit of a respite from the craziness outside. I returned to my room, and...yep, cried some more. I'm sure it was probably induced by jet lag and saying goodbye to Sal and Jake and all those things.
My family always teases me for being too sensitive. I've learned to reconcile that by recognizing that my sensitivity makes me a better human because I have more compassion. But this compassion was so overwhelming. There was no way to manage it. In the taxis mothers holding little hungry children would tap on the window asking for money. One time, in this sea of crazy traffic I saw a little girl, no taller than three feet, moving through the traffic without even a glimpse of fear in her eyes. Yes. I was definitely too sensitive.
The next day I made it to the Gateway to India and out to the place where we were to catch the ferry for Elephanta Island, but then a wave of nausea came over me. John was very helpful at finding me a place to recover so that I wouldn't have to publicly puke on the streets of India. The Taj Hotel.
The Taj is a gigantic, super deluxe, elegant hotel. John had noticed in the newspaper that on this particular day, Kanye West, the rapper, was staying there. We had planned to have tea there when we came to Mumbai. Now, all that I cared about was the ladies room. After we made it through the security screening and through the gigantic revolving door and were inside another overwhelming smell took over. Apparently, they improve the ambience of the lobby with some air freshener that was nauseatingly sweet, although everything was nauseating for me at that moment. We wandered down a hall past photos of John Lennon, George Bush, Michael Douglas and a bunch of other famous folks that had stayed there. I briefly wondered what their first impression of India was after being swept into this posh hotel. I found a ladies room and entered briefly enough to know that my senses wouldn't be able to endure the new overwhelming scent in there. Finally we sat in a quiet place long enough for the nausea to pass. I had no desire to sit there any longer nor to have tea there. I actually longed for the good old Hotel New Bengal and its nearly scent free room. Ironic.
I keep asking John, so what do you love about India? I don't get it yet.
We decide to leave Mumbai a day early and move on to Ganeshpuri, the little village where John's guru lived and died. As we drive for what feels like two hours, I wonder I'd there is any fresh air anywhere in India.
No comments:
Post a Comment