Welcome to Mumbai

I arrived at about 11 pm, two hours later than the scheduled time. The last hour on the train was pretty anxious as my Bangladeshi sojourners have also never been to Mumbai; vast mass of the lights would appear outside clearly signifying a major city and one of the men would exclaim, “Acha! This is Mumbai?!” Yet the station that would follow would be called X junction.. The majority of the passengers loaded off at Daddar and only a few reached the final CST.

I was supposed to stay at Bea’s, a friend of Kate working for an NGO in Mumbai. Actually, Kate herself as per the initial plan was going to come to Mumbai the day after and lots of fun could be shared by the three of us. Yet, evil police and Kate's campaign that was about to culminate in a protest by India Gate did not make it happen: I was leaving for Goa on the night Kate was flying to Mumbai.

I called Bea’s mobile and she appeared to be out downtown, so she suggested I come to the Gateway of India where she would pick me up so we could go to her’s together. I walked off the railway station and immediately sensed humidity that made me realize how much south I moved. Strangely enough, I found a typical by-railway type area outside: the exit brought me to a rather deserted street with incredibly clean, smooth and even shining in the moonlight road. Then I saw a gothic building that looked like a Boll so inappropriate it seemed in an Indian town. Newish looking buses were one of the first impressions too. After a few enquires that did not lead anywhere due to the lack of the shared medium language (on my side, assumingly English). However, I found two nice gentlemen who got me a dark-green taxi with a yellow stripe, asked the driver to bring me to the Gateway of India and told me not to pay more than 20 Rs. In a moment I was delivered to the place.

How should it feel to find yourself by the Gateway of India overlooking Arabian sea next to the grand Taj Hotel – right upon your arrival in Mumbai. It did not take long to be found and identified by Bea (in the meanwhile, I experienced some minor attacks by the hawkers and “Cheap hotel, mam” chap who got discouraged and puzzled when I explained, “I am staying here” and pointed at the Taj. Bea, a dressed up girl with long light red hair, came up, exchanged her purse for my backpack and walked me somewhere. In a few moments I found myself at an incredibly private party in an astonishingly posh bar. Bea introduced me to a couple of friends, including the Bday guy roaming around with a glass and a thick cigar who immediately promised me that “it would only get better”. And it did: I got some red wine served in a huge pot-bellied wine glass, I was sipping in to Katie Melua bizarrely singing “Lilac wine”, I was chit-chatting with the newly introduced people and they were shouting through the loud music, “Welcome to Mumbai”! I without shower for a week (fever in Kalimpong and then 2 days on the train) in my stinky cottons was around all those dressed-up people in this way-too-nice place in the very heart of Mumbai – this looked like the biggest prank ever to me.

We were gloriously driving to Bea’s in the old fashioned dark green puffed taxi… along the Marine drive (else called Queen’s necklace by the virtue of being curve-shaped motorway in the dark demarked with the twinkling lights). To your scenic drive we were discussing Delhi vs Mumbai, the girls were singing Sinatra’s “New York” changing NY for Bombei and I thought there must be a camera somewhere and we are filmed for a new Bollywood fairytale.