Now I know how Tesco felt

HIYA!!!

You are probably wondering how a supermarket chain more commonly associated with 'land-grabbing' and local organisations advocating on behalf of conumers and small business could understand how I felt when I saw this sign in Thane in India.

Well the simple answer is of course; a supermarket with this sort of profile could never understand the excitment! But maybe the guy who stayed along the street from me who was called Thomas Edward Stanley (nickname Tesco) could, when Willie Low's shut down and Tesco opened in its place.

I just need to track him down for a conversation about the experience! Just as well he wasn't called Stanley Edward Thomas or Edward Thomas Stanley or Stanley Thomas Edward - then I would have no-one to talk to about the unique experience of discovering a shop that you share the name of!

If you think that this is a bit of dodgy writing - then you should go and check out Ask a Ninja!

HIYA!!!

The bog on the blog

All Mod Cons! (is the third album by The Jam and contains the song 'To Be Someone' - which if I was I wouldn't be doing this...)  The song includes the line 'didn't we have a nice time..?' - which I'm not!

Yeah well this is the first thing that we photographed when we arrived at our hostel. The water wasn't working and this meant that we had to walk across the hallway to get water to fill up the cistern etc. As you can see the accommodation was sublime. I don't know if there is such a thing as a libel action for sarky types - so it shall remain nameless!!!

Anyway like the pampered westerners that we are, when the announcement was made that we were being decanted / evacuated with our colleagues who shared our predicament; we just about stampeded out the door. I will never quite understand the confusion on the faces of the staff as we hurried past their admin office for the exit for the last time!

Waitin' for buses

Waiting for buses is never a good thing - N.E.V.E.R.! Waiting for buses, that are the start of a journey at the end of a holiday or a visit to somewhere that has been significant, even less so! Still while it is the start of the transportation we have been out of our room since 1200 today and are not getting picked up until 2030. Considering that we are 4.5 hours ahead of Scotland, by the time that I should get in the house tomorrow, that will be about 30 hours from closing the door of our room till opening the door of my house! Anyway enough of that...

This will be my last post from Mumbai and I have seen way too much stuff to convey in this blog, at this time. I will try to get some of the photographs that I have taken developed, as soon as possible and post them at the corresponding articles when I get home. This will hopefully give me some more stuff that I can write and maybe add another dimension to the posts, so that people can maybe understand where I have been a wee bit clearer.

As time goes on I will also attempt to add some information about some of the issues and more factual content.

While taking advantage of the air conditioning in the Internet Cafe I have used, I have looked at

www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mumbai

and, even though I looked at it before I came out I now relate to it differently. I suppose that is ultimately what the journey was all about. It is certainly worth a 'wee look at' and gives links to all sorts of information about this stunning city; although there is no clear mention of the poverty that I have bore witness to!

We should fly to Vienna at ten to one in the morning and I have charged my IPod for this leg of the journey. Although, since I eventually worked out how to operate the remote control on the plane on the way out, I might try and watch a film or two. Oh; and they have a couple of video games on it as well, so I will check out what these are all about. Need to think travel strategy!

I will keep the BLOG going for a wee while, because there might be some developments to come from our short time out here... I have enjoyed writing it - it gave me some focus to channel my experiences and feel that I was sharing them with people who might know me.

Before I finish up this post, I will write a wee story about when I was doing some media training some years ago. I had a smashing tutor and the one thing that he used to bang about was - always write in the voice of the paper / magazine that you are working / freelancing for.

BLOGS give people a mechanism to write about whatever they want in their own 'voice' under their own terms, this is an extremely powerful thing to have the ability to do! People's responses from Scotland to my posts out here demonstrate the interactive potential of global communications - this was one of my favourite parts of the experience.

Anyway, my media tutor had been a food critic as a journalist - his favourite food was the sausages in Heinz 'Sausage and Beans'! Although that was only his opinion, I suppose I have always thought of this as a metaphor for finding beauty where you least expect it.

"Yeah, so what are you going on about Raymie?" Well the views of the islands across the Arabian Sea from Mumbai are absolutely spectacular and the skyline is a sight to behold, but the smiles of the rag pickers and their children in the slums on Saturday afternoon will be with me forever... true beauty. Uh oh, I think that there might be a song in there somewhere...

My (next) Life as a Bollywood Extra

Kiran used to show up outside of our hostel everyday, he was about 24 and had a 'well polished' look about him. He had movie star or model looks and would ask me if I would go and be a Bollywood extra - a few of us were interested in this but never managed to get the chance to go along. I don't know that it would have meant that I would have been involved in any of the crazy dance scenes, but it was definitely an odd opportunity to have been offered! As some people say out here - maybe in the next life!

The only time that people approach me with offers of work in Glasgow is when they want me to do some market research for them outside the Buchanan Hotel... Maybe if the Scottish film industry was able to develop, this might change!

Dancing Footnote

On the subject of crazy dance scenes, after coming back from dinner last night we were sitting outside of our hotel when I noticed two young guys (about 12 and 14) boddy popping. This isn't really that unusual in Glasgow, but considering that they were wearing traditional Islamic clothing the sight was a tad novel! This only got worse when they were joined by my room-mate Peter dressed in traditional Scottish clothing - a kilt and a lace-tie collar 'Jacobite' shirt. Superb(!) two wee local guys and a renegade 'Tartan Army footsoldier' body popping about the street as the taxis tooted their horns - what a scream!

The Hard Luck Cafe and the Boulevard of Broken Dreams

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...

The Outskirts of Town

On Saturday we went for a ride on the train again(!), the train was quite quiet on the way out due to it being a holiday and so it wasn't too bad. On the way back we had to run and jump on - into first class with a second class ticket because the rest were so busy. To board second class would have meant that we might have had to hang out of the door - when you consider that on average 20 - 26 people a month die on the Mumbai trains this was never going to be an option. We stood quite near to the door and there is something of a breeze, so you can see why people stand there!

Anyway where were we - well it is fair to say that this was going to be the most challenging visit of the trip, so our organisers had put it at the end of the itinerary. We went out to visit an organisation that works with people in the slums of Mumbai - these are the people who you might have seen on the television who live within canvas rags. As we walked through the visibly crumbling streets we began to attract attention. At one point we had a group of sixty or more young people following us along the streets excited by our presence. Some people found this quite intimidating - but some of the young people spoke to us and asked questions - their English was superb.

It was absolutely horrendous and the memory of that day will remain with me forever. The organisation works with the people who are known as 'rag-pickers' and this is their work - if you consider that towns, villages and cities grow up around where the industry was - farming, cotton-weaving, ports etc. then to think that this 'industry' is based around a landfill site might give an idea of how bad things are for these people.

We went right through the tents to a riverside and there were young males swimming in it, despite it being clearly polluted. On the way down this pathway there were young children looking after babies and some women who even despite our intrusion into their private space managed to smile. All of the people were extremely friendly and welcoming and we met a social activist who lives within the community and fights campaigns for the rights of the rag pickers - she was a very strong woman. The visit was extremely humbling, and has given me a lot to think about; although whether I can make any sense of this sort of hardship is something that will take time. Some people try to paint a picture that this is the start of an economic journey for the people - after seeing it though; it feels more like the 'end of the line'!

Friday Street Kids

On Friday we left early from our hostel to go to visit a project that works with young people on the streets of Mumbai. This was something that I always wanted to gain some understanding of after three years of working with young people experiencing on street homelessness on the streets of Glasgow.

The organisation working on this takes an approach that would require about 12 organisations in Glasgow and this was more like the way that I think work with people coming from the streets could have success. If young people agree to work with the charity, which is a christian organisation they can take part in a training scheme for a year. There can be up to eight of the young people accommodated in the project's flat during this time and they also gain the opportunity to learn about managing a house and essential things like cooking.

Once they progress through the year they can sit exams to demonstrate that they are competent to enter the job market as either a tailor or a screenprinter. The journey there meant we had to get a taxi, a train and an autorickshaw (a vespa scooter taxi) as someone who drove scooters when I was younger, this was a personal delight. On the way back two of us failed to board the train successfully and had to wait on the next one - the train caper is so intimidating!