It is Monday and the streets of Mumbai are once again bustling and the sound of car horns fills the air. Over the weekend I didn't realise that the streets had become a bit quieter than during the previous week; but today I can notice a clear difference. The streets are teeming with people and one thing that caught our eye is people sitting on the pavement filling out forms - we wondered if they were job applications since it is the start of the week!?
The weekend was quite relaxing, because we moved from our hostel to a hotel - some people seem to think that the difference between a hostel and a hotel is the letter 's'; but let me assure you there is more to it than that!
In the hostel we had wee crappy pillows but now we had big fluffy ones, if we had a shower, the room was too hot and you started sweating almost immediately - now we had air conditioning. I am muttering on about this because; when we struggled with the conditions of the hostel, even they were a world away from the people who live in the slums out here!
After the challenges of Friday and Saturday, Martin and me went out to see if we could find any football to watch - we went to the local Sports Bar. We were able to watch Sheffield United vs Charlton on one telly with Liverpool on another and familiar western rock music blasting out; this included Oasis, Green Day, Metallica, Coldplay. There was a young Indian guy with a Cradle of Filth teeshirt and his pal had on an Incubus one! I found this sort of thing really interesting, as they were clearly identifying with western youth subcultures over their traditional Indian culture. They seemed to be expressing a commitment to their chosen subculture and I wondered if they would encounter the sort of difficulties within their respective communities that I know a lot of young people in my country who become goths, punks, moshers etc. can have to deal with!
Sticking with cultural differences, when we were at the train station on Friday, some of the women in our group were asked to cover up their shoulders because it could cause some offence to people. When we were in the Sports Bar I noticed some of the young women had their shoulders exposed. Like the young guys in their heavy metal tee-shirts, I think that this could have been a hugely significant statement. REM's song Losing my Religion was playing and it has never seemed so apt!
Continuing the 'cultural exchange' theme on Sunday we went out for our lunch to the Hard Rock Cafe (HRC) and this was a twenty minute drive from our lovely new accommodation. To get to where the HRC was we had to go through two sentry boxes with guards inside! Considering that there was a row of slum housing made of corrugated iron round the corner, on stepping inside it was clear why this place was hidden away up a side street through security caurdons. There were people having their lunch and considering that we paid for three people what would easily have fed six - it is fair to say that they would have been extremely well off.
As we left, we passed the people in the corrugated shacks again and hearing Green Day's Boulevard of Broken Dreams during the visit added to the feelings of despair passing this sight / site. People try to justify the polar opposites of this short distance by saying that the people are 'left to their fate' or 'make their own luck'. Although the journey back to our lovely hotel through the seafront of Mumbai's bay was spectacular - the pristine skyscrapers that symbolise the successes of India's 'economic triumph' suggested something altogether different to me! The air conditioning in the room stank as well...
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