Welcome to India – first impressions

So here I am, in incredible India! After a very comfortable but noisy flight (I’ll never have a baby! J) with Emirates, I arrived in Mumbai. My very first impressions: it's hot and humid; you just can’t help the sweating. What I then saw first was the slums right besides the runways. To be honest, he first impression wasn't really the best one.

White girl in the big city

The arranged airport pickup by AIESEC worked more or less. The guy was there, but didn’t recognize me (he had asked for a picture in beforehand) and of course a sign with my name would have been quite circumstantial. So I had to call him. The following 3 hours taxi ride was a little bit of a torture: we were constantly standing in traffic at around 35° and in a car from the 50ies (or so) à no A/C, no wind, just heat! But it was very interesting as well, because I got to observe the city and the people. auto-rickshaws (basically a motorcycle with a car-top on it) are everywhere; it seems to be the principal means of transportation. And even though Mumbai has many foreigners, I was stared at, in a way I had hardly imagined. People don’t turn away, once your looks meet. Two guys in a van even took a picture of me with their cellphone. Very funny experience… and it seems I’ll have to get used to it. J One thing that really impressed me is that even though you can immediately see that there’s a lot of poverty, I couldn’t really tell who were the poor people: Everybody is dressed very clean and nicely; men the western way wearing trousers and shirt, women the Indian way with a salwar-kameez (pants and long blouse) or a sari. Only a minority of women wears tops or t-shirts.

When we finally arrived in Thane (north of Mumbai, just outside the city border), I was pleasantly surprised. For the first 2 days of my stay here I live in a guest apartment. This means I have a private cook and a butler. They’re only here to serve me and 1-2 other guests. What should I say… I felt very welcome. J Dinner was amazing: I sat down and got 4 different vegetable and chicken dishes, bread, rice, salad and fruit. When I asked the guys to show me how to eat the Indian way (with your fingers), they didn’t seem to understand. Only when the butler (I don’t know how they’re really called…) from the opposite apartment came in and understood what I wanted, they giggled but didn’t want to show me. After a while the 2^nd butler showed me how to use the three fingers (thumb, middle and ring finger) of your right hand… the others still laughing behind.

Holy cow!

On Saturday, I decided to defy the monsoon and walk around a little in the neighbourhood. I had observed the day before, that everyone is wearing thongs (and their clothes are clean). So this was my plan as well. To adapt to the heat but also the customs, I wore white ¾ pants and my plastic thongs. It didn’t work out at all, my pants were all dirty after 5mins. While walking around a man suddenly came up to me. “Ma’am, all the mod comes to your trousers. You should wear heel.“ … and off he was again. I bought thongs with heels in the afternoon. J

A bit later, walking around a corner, I suddenly saw a cow on the street. Ok, they are holy… but it is still quite unusual that nobody seems to matter. Whereas they honk the horn for everything and at all times, they drive around the cow as if there was nothing standing there. When I took a picture of this scene, a father came to me with his daughter. He pointed at my camera and said something I could not really guess. Did he want a picture of his daughter, did they want to take a picture for me, with me…. what? Indian gestures are so different from European ones; you can’t guess at all what they want to say if you don’t speak the language! After a while I found out that they wanted to see the picture I took from the cow. Thelittle girl was all happy and they walked away laughing. It’s a very nice culture, people here laugh a lot. I haven’t quite figured out though if they laugh about me or with me. J

Do you speak English ?

When I realized that there isn’t so much more around to see, I followed the advice of the girl from Tata I’m in contact with and go to the big shopping mall. I wasn’t up for shopping at all, but I thought if that’s her advice for an afternoon programme, it must be very interesting or different to what I know. It was not, except the metal detector at the entrance. But to get there was quite an adventure. I didn’t want to take a rickshaw straight away but rather walk a bit in this direction in order to get to see a bit more. Whenever I asked someone for directions they didn’t really know what I was talking about. Then I realized that asking rickshaw drivers or people at a food stand is a bad strategy because they firstly, don’t speak English at all and secondly don’t know shopping places (or at least the ones I asked). After walking back and forth for a while I gave up and decided to take a rickshaw. Sounds easy, but it isn’t at the first time. The first driver just said no, the second didn’t know where it was and the third one didn’t speak a word of English but agreed to bring me there. He didn’t really know where it was either. I didn’t mind anymore, not even that unfortunately, his “meter was broke”J. He always talked to me even though I could never give an answer he understood and then he just laughed and gave me a high-five. This was quite funny at the beginning.

When I suggested asking someone on the street where the place is, instead of asking another rickshaw driver or some of the many people walking, he drove 100m to a store in a side street. After asking he wanted to convince me that I buy something (if I understood him right). Quite bothered he continued after my 20 “NOs” and later stopped at the border of the city (the mall is inside Mumbai not in Thane and the rickshaws are only allowed to drive in their own city/district). He didn’t want to let me go and grabbed my arm and then he suddenly spoke English. At least one word: “Kiss, kiss”! I was gone quite quickly. After the city border I had to take a second rickshaw to get to this mall. Same game again: one said no, the other wanted to charge me way too much. Then a young man came up to me and explained me how to use the bus. J He was gentleman (paid my ticket: 6Rs, not even 5cents), smart (scientist, organic chemistry) and open person (married to a women of a higher caste which was interesting to talk about). The mall was nothing spectacular except that I learned that Indians use a water hose instead of toilet paper. I’m sure I’ll never get used to this. What luck that I’m a woman… always carrying a bag full of useful things like tissues for example. I got out of the mall only 1 hour later… but the travel was definitely worth the time.

So these were my first two days in Mumbai… most of the people here are very friendly and helpful, the city is huge and crowded and I’m looking forward to living more great moments. I hope you found it interesting.

Don’t forget to comment. ;-)