Not really sure that it is possible to wrap up my thoughts about Mumbai but since there was no opportunity to continue blogging while down there the whole story seems a bit unfinished. So there is a need for a closing.
Friday was conference day so not much else happened on that day besides the conference. My keynote went well and there were many interesting people to talk and listen to during the rest of the day.
Saturday was group tourism day we spent the day around town enjoying the sights and sounds. The others even managed to go to a Bollywood movie that night but my guilty conscious made me stay at the hotel to do some much-neglected work.
On Sunday all the others took a day trip to the city of Pune but I felt there was too much I had not seen. In addition to this I really needed to stretch my legs rather than sit in a car all day. So I decided to explore much more of the city. My plan was to travel to a far point from the hotel and basically wind my way back through the more interesting streets I could find. The result was a great seven-hour walk through the city.
The trip started at the Hindu Mahalaxmi Temple complex and the Muslim shrine of Haji Ali Darga. The latter is out in the water and is reached by walking across a causeway the white shrine seems to float in the water. It is very impressive.
From there I just started walking. Following no real plan except for generally moving in the direction that would eventually lead me back to the hotel. The only point on the way I wanted to reach was a series of markets.
Finding the markets was a bit of a challenge. The city is not mapped out on a grid pattern. This makes the city more unpredictable and exciting, but it also makes navigation more difficult since the maps that I carried seemed not necessarily to represent the reality of the physical space. This was made more confusing by the fact that many roads carry both colonial names and post-colonial names. In addition to this many of the roads and places are known not by formal names but rather by accepted nicknames.
Eventually I began to get the impression that Mumbai was a limitless space. It seemed to expand limitlessly. I donâ??t mean that the outer edges were moving further from the center (which they also are) what I mean is that around every corner was a new surprise a new microcosm to be discovered.
I used to think that Rushdieâ??s magical realism when depicting this city was the result of excellent prose, an admiration for South American writers and an active imagination but after walking around Mumbai I get the feeling that the only way to capture this city on paper is to resort to magical realism. It is the only realism that can do credit to the city.
The markets came and went, the city continued with every corner: new sights, new characters, new experiences. The American shouting that someone stole his wallet, the salesperson who cursed me when I would not buy (the one and only such experience), three men pushing and pulling a cart had to stop to get a cow to move out of the way, markets with imaginable and unimaginable merchandise, the European hippie with dreadlocks and a child on his shoulders having an argument with his East Asian women â?? as I pass the hippie shouts angrily: the problem with you is that you need more discipline.
What can be said about a city which never ends but is a universe unto itself, how is it to be defined? To me there is no way to describe the city but its hallmarks are the endlessness and the life â?? the unpredictability and scope.
Home at last with bags unpacked and the first working day over Mumbai has left many impressions. From the memories to the scent of mothballs which has stuck to my backpackâ?¦
Not much more can be said that will capture the city. There are no pictures with this final post, instead all the pictures are online here.