Day 3  Tues. Nov. 20, 2012

Mumbai

Today was our day to learn as much as possible about Mumbai (Bombay) because we are flying out early tomorrow morning to Bangalore in the south of India.  Our Trident Hotel is in the heart of Mumbai along a prominent roadway called the Queen’s Necklace. Mumbai, with its great harbor ,and 21 million people, is the financial / commercial capital of India.  40% of all of India’s trade happens in Mumbai - Bombay.  The hotel is on the west coast of India, overlooking the Arabian Sea.  Breakfast was “all you can eat” of the best food ever.  (I ate pancakes with maple syrup, fried potatoes with my veggie omelet, 4 different kinds of freshly squeezed juice, and porridge topped with mango yogurt.)

We toured Mumbai by bus and our first stop was the “Hanging Gardens”.  In the early days of Mumbai, the Parsi people who had fled persecution by the Muslims in Iran, believed in harmony with nature.  Their Zoroastrian beliefs about life were to keep everything pure and never pollute.  So when a Parsi died, they would place the body near one of the 5 wells which were along the Arabian Sea in Mumbai.  These 5 wells were called “The Towers of Silence”.  The black and white crows and other scavenger birds would immediately eat the dead flesh of the person.  The bones would be left to fertilize the earth, thus no pollution!  One day, in order to prevent the birds from dropping dead flesh into the water, they planted many trees and plants over the reservoir which became known as the “Hanging Gardens.”

Our next stop was the “Public Laundry” (Dhobi Ghat).  The middle class people would have servants for almost everything and they were cheap to hire.  One job was the laundry which was done once a week.  A “dhobi” (laundry man) would arrive at the house at the beginning of the week and pick up all the dirty laundry.  It would be delivered to the bath area in the middle of town where many servants would clean the laundry, iron and starch it, and fold it.  Then it was returned to the families at the end of the week and they would start again.  Thousands of people had their clothes cleaned in this way, and there was never a mistake or a mixup of the clothes.  This custom is still going on today, and has been done for hundreds of years.

Another similar job of the servants was the delivering of lunches to the work places in cylindrical lunch boxes.  If members of a family wanted their lunches delivered to the workplaces, they would register with the “dabawalla”. This service was very cheap.  The dabawalla would come to the house every day and pick up all the lunches and take them across the city by train and bicycle to the workplace.  At the end of the day, the dabawalla would pick up the empty cyclinders and return them to the homes.  They deliver 500,000 lunches per day.  There is never a mixup or mistake.

The dhobi (laundry men) and the dabawalla (lunch delivery boys) could not read or write.

Next we stopped at Ghandi’s house.  Ghandi was the saviour of the Indian people.  He was born in 1869.  He became a lawyer.  From 1914 to 1927, he lived in Mumbai.  His home now is a museum and library.  Ghandi believed in fairness and he solved all problems in a positive way.  The Indian people loved him.  He was their hero!  Ghandi marched through Mumbai for 25 days gathering hundreds of thousands of people along the way to protest the tax on salt.  The city officials decided not to tax salt because of this protest.  Salt was used by everyone and the people had little money and couldn’t afford the tax on salt.  They protested with Ghandi in this positive march.

Mumbai is a vibrant city and is relatively clean considering the huge populatiion.  The people are very helpful and friendly.  Everyone smiles and they love getting their pictures taken.  The architecture is very elegant, beautiful, and there is lots of variety.  The Ambani skyscraper house is the richest in the world.  This very tall high rise building is home to one family.  It even has it own skating rink.  The “Gateway to India” was built in honour of the British and welcomes visitors down on harbour front.   The cricket fields, beaches, race tracks, schools, hospitals, and bridges are all fascinating to see.