Bombay is a dump

Okay, a few days ago I finally started to feel home here in Bombay, and things felt good and I enjoyed life here. Then, this last Sunday it all changed and I got sick and tired of this dump. So now I'm gonna tell why... but end this post with some positive things. (It's not like I'm consumed with bitterness).

On the way back from Church, in Vashi, it started with a bird drop a bomb on my brand new tailor made pants. Then I had to wait for over two hours for the stupid train to come, not sure if it was delaied or if they just don't go as often on Sundays ... and no taxis in sight, only rickshaws (rickshaws are banned in the southern parts of Bombay, so I couldn't take one home).

When the train finally came, it suddently changed to a different platform on the other side of the train station, so I had to hurry over there. Then the train was completely packed with people, and there I stood, crammed and sweatty and barely able to move.
When the train was about to arrive to Govandi, two stops away, it felt like a hand was searching in my left side pocket, but I couldn't do anything, because I was holding on with my left arm and couldn't take it down becausee it was so darn packed. I was holding my bags with right arm, plus I was protecting the camera and the mobile phone that were in the right pocket, so my right hand wasn't avaiable. Then suddenty the train stopped and a hord of people pushed out. I could feel that my wallet was gone and run out, but to no use since I wouldn't be able to know where the thieves went among all this myriad of people. I felt violated, and so powerless ..and a hatred towards the Bombay public transportation and traffic system.

I jumped on the next train, and ironically, soon a salesperson jumped on the train trying to sell wallets to th passangers ...twice.

Why do I constantly have to travel with these insanelly packed trains, where I from now on will feel unsafe because of the vunerable situation that I will be in with limited mobility, and being selected out as a easy target because I am Westerner (and who probably has a lot of money, in the thieves mind). I already hated the claustrophobic feeling that are in most trains.
Buses are generally crowded too, and often stuck in traffic jams when they really are needed.
That partains to general traffic here too... cars everywhere.. traffic jams ... constant honking... improvised traffic rules. Crazy and egotistical motorcyclists... and at night many taxis drive without any headlights.. causing a great danger, especially if they drive behind a car that has headlights, when you need to cross the street and think that you're safe.
The pollution and the terrible air from the traffic... yeah, the list goes on.

I miss peace and serenity, and I'm sick and tired of all these huge crowds of people everywhere. I'm sick and tired of people caughing straight out, or sneezing in their hands .... spreading germs and bacteria all thr time. I'm sick and tired of all the garbage everywhere.. and how some people just throw it on the street or right out of their windows.

I think I'll stop here... and I even skip the other bad things that happened last Sunday.

... on the positive side of things... I still don't regret coming here, even if there's no way in hell that I'll settle down here. I have met some really, really great people here... and there are aspects to my internship that I really love and enjoy, and that has given me great learning experiences. I still want to get out the most of my experience here. I try to learn Hindi phrases, wear Indian clothing, buy various Indian movies (including Bollywood), eat Indian food, befriend people here, learn about the culture, and eventually travel around a little.

Tadi tada...

Life feels better now. I like the turn of events. We have switched to single rooms, as was the plan from the beginning… and in these rooms we have an outlet for electricity! Yea, now I can watch “Heroes” and movies on my laptop after all, and play with photos on Photoshop and all those other things. ..and the bed, the bed is still as hard, but my body has adjusted to it surprisingly well. My room is in the corner, and has windows too two sides. The view is the best I’ve had so far here in India. I think that I eventually will be able to block out the sound from the traffic and all the honking horns that comes from one side of my room. The cold showers are also manageable. Hey, I haven’t had a nice warm shower since I came to India anyway. Just “not that cold”, “a little cold”, “cold”, “way cold”, and “hey, is it supposed to be this cold!?”.

Things here feel easier to handle now. I’m happy. Not joyful, and not inner peace like, just simply happy. Some things still stink big time, but that would be hard to avoid anyway.

I sold my bag of the Swedish candy “Gott & Blandat” to Sebastian for 1500 rupees. It’s way good. …and eating Swedish candy when being far away from Sweden, and for so long, has some magic healing power. My bags of “Polly”, “Ahlgrens bilar” and “Fruxo” cured some of my stress.
Sebastian offered me 500 rupees at first, but I said “No way!” I also turned down the offer of 1000 rupees, but I finally accepted the final bid. Sad thing is that I don’t feel bad about it. It’s a bag of “Gott & Blandat” and we’re in India after all. The approximate rate of 1500 rupees now = 220 Swedish kronor, 40 US dollars. ….yeah.

Monsoon over the Dharavi slum – the biggest slum in Asia.

I had a new adventure… and a very, very interesting experience, that I feel deserves a post by itself. Last Tuesday, Sebastian and I went with our co-worker Swati to the very southern part of the Dharavi slum, in the northern parts of Bombay. It’s usually not in the area that the Family Services Centre cover, but they work with a group called Chirag, that works with people that are HIV positive, their families, and on community level in order to inform people and create awareness and acceptance towards people with HIV. We visited their organisation where a lady told us about her organisation. They were in a big rectangular room, where they also had some people working, sewing. It was a little hard to hear at times because of the sewing machines in the background.

After that we did some home visits where FSC sponsors the schooling of some of the children to HIV positive parents.

I won’t go in to further detail about the work process, but instead tell about the Dharavi experience. As the headline says, Dharavi is the biggest slum in Asia, and is a maze of dark alleys and dusty streets. The buildings are a mix of multilevel concrete houses built tightly next to each other, and simple iron shack housings. Whole families usually share small, small one room apartments, some of them smaller than some people’s bathrooms.
But the society works “normally” anyway. Most people have electricity (with cables hanging here and there over and between the buildings. Inside many people have electric kitchens and fridges. Most houses seem to have a TV and some type of stereo system. You see people with cell phones and motorcycles.

There are various small shops everywhere. There are tailors, smiths, electronic stores selling DVD players and VCR’s, computer stores, snack bars, barbers, clothing stores selling western style jeans, places you can reload your prepaid phone card, and so on and so on, I even saw a jewellery store. All this in the slum!

Of course there’s full of poverty there, and people suffering. Some of the big problems are also the small spaces, and the hygiene. People live so crowded, and there are sewer lines running down the streets. I saw rats run around that were bigger than kittens (and that was just the body, add the tail on top of that).

While there, a terrible monsoon rain just pored down, flooding some of the streets. At parts the puddles were so deep that I almost got knee deep in water. The rain seemed to have no end.

As with many other parts of Bombay, the area was full of various smells. The outside had its smell of pollution from the cars and rickshaws; the inside smells from the sewers and the garbage, but also the smells from the various food places, the fruit market and the fish market. The smell could turn from good to bad, and back again, really fast. You never know what smell will wait for you around the corner.

I felt like an explorer, going to places where no white man has set his foot before. Lots of people stared at us everywhere we went, more than usually. Random men wanted to shake our hands, women smiled at us talking amongst them selves, young people wanted to touch us as we pasted them and made some cheering (or mocking) noises, and children were full of innocent childlike curiosity.
A young boy that saw us started to yell to his friends in Hindi from the top of his lungs “The English sirs are coming, the English sirs are coming! Come out, come out!” (Swati translated).
All looks and comments weren’t friendly though. I’m also not sure how to interpretate all the laughs ether. I guess there were various reasons for them.

I got later that expected and we were all exhausted when we got home.

Well, these are all the impressions that I remembered, and I don’t know if I did the experience any justice, including my mix of emotions and thoughts. It was far more than I could fully express in words. It needs to be seen ...and even better – in person.

"Spank it! Spank it!"

Ok... time to went and whine. Especially since I wrote on Facebook that I had the crappiest weekend in a long time.

I guess I start with some good news first... that Sebastian is alive and well. My stomach is doing well too. "Well" as in a "Swedes being India" standards.

Anyway... my weekend, I have been stressed and not felt very good. In many aspects. ..and the only place where I really could be by myself was in a small humid room in the Malaria Guest House.
Went and saw "Righteous Kill", some Hollywood movie, in a movie theater here (Regal). That was a different experience. It started off at first with playing the Indian National Anthem, and everybody had to stand up. The Indians there sang along. I heard later that it was a Bombay thing. Then the movie started... and the sound quality turned out to be pretty bad, so it was hard to follow the dialogues at times. Then, less than an hour in to the movie, they stopped for a break! During the break they even showed some trailers for some other stuff. It totally ruined the mood, that already was low due to the bad sound quality. Sure, have breaks during the 3-hour Bollywood movies, but don't touch the Hollywood ones! Sooo utterly idiotic.

During one of these moments when I wanted to have some time on my own, and not being in my humid room, I decided for a walk along a river walk close by. It's usually not too crowded. But on the way there there were these dudes trying to sell these giant balloons (almost man sized). I run in to them on a regular basis, and they keep trying to sell me those... and saying "Spank it, spank it!" while they spank it themselves. I don't really care for spanking any giant balloons, the less buying one. What in the world should I do with it, if I have no interest in spanking it?
I have these fantasies where I have this really sharp stick and where I go around poking every d**n balloon I run into.

What's even more annoying. are those "point-to-your-ear-and-poke-it-with-a-stick" people. On that river walk there was an army of those idiots. "Hey sir..." and started to point at my ear and get close. I was in a bad mood and lost it. I reamed "Don't touch me!" or waved them away aggressively. Those fools kept coming. Sure, do it for someone that asked for it, but leave my ears alone! I'm thinking of getting a bamboo stick and.... (...)

It was the last day of the Ganesh festivities. This time they put various sizes of Ganesh statues in the water and let it sink... along with people saying "Mooria, mooria!" I watched it and took photos of it. Even this time I got that colourful powder thrown at me. this time though, the powder had some type of chemicals in it, so I got an allergic reaction to it. By night I had a rash all over. All night my arms, stomach, chest, legs, and feet were itching. I barelly got any sleep at all. ..and I have slept bad the night before too. By morning I was way tired. The itch moved around during the day and my head, hands, and fingers started to itch.

Well, we moved to our new place... Seva Niketan. It's in the Byculla area, further north. We were taken there by an idiot taxi driver, that smoked in the car and then ripped us off. We paid waaay too much for the ride, but we were both too tired to argue, plus our luggage was in the car already. Then he just carelessly took of out luggage and drove away.
Well, our new place is cleaner, cheaper, bigger and nicer.... sweet! And we can eat food cheaply at the canteen there. But of course... it would be too good to be perfect. ... we have no electric outlets, so no chill nights watching "Heroes" or some movie on my laptop... and the beds are rock hard, including the pillows. The worst I ever have encountered.
I did not sleep well the following night ether...

With all this, I want to say that I have left out some of the most personal details about my crappy weekend.

Well... at least the rash is gone, and my stomach is okay... for the moment.

Malaria Guest House.. and other unclean things

We had enough of this new place. On Monday we're moving out to a new place. It's cheaper, bigger, and cleaner. Unfortunately, it's a lot further away from where we work. But we'll manage.

Sebastian has been way sick. He has been to the doctor, and the symptoms are the same as with malaria. ... yup. Dead serious. He did not look well at all. Would not surprise me if it was the unsanitary Malaria (Apollo) Guest House that caused it with their ladybug sized bed bugs (filled with blood) ..or some other type of insect. The humidity and other things there probably attracts various types of strange life forms. Sebastian is doing somewhat better at the moment. Let's hope that it continues to get better.
Anyway, I won't miss my humid room or the greasy walls and doors in the bathroom.

A couple of days ago I went along two other Social Work students and visited a young girl at a government owned hospital. She had Tuberculosis, and had such a sad life story. The hospital looked like it was from the beginning of the last century, ...and there were cats walking around there.

Yesterday I went along to an institution where they take care of used children. It can be child labourers, beggars, or in other ways used children. They keep them there for a couple of months and try to straighten out their lives. This day they had a bunch of child labourers that probably the police had caught in some raid. There were lots of them, and their employers were there trying to excuse themselves and how they in fact were "helping" them. (..all so that they could get away with having cheap labour). It was nice to see the middle aged lade put them in to place. "How are you helping them by pulling them out of school? How will he support his family? Their kids are also going to end up as child labourers." ..and so on. I liked her. She was way cool.
The employers had brought the kid's parents, many of them from rural areas, and having them talk to the people of the institution so that they can send the kids "home". What happens is that for a little sum of money from the employers ... their back to business as usual. What the institution tries to do during those two months is to talk to kids and their parents, and that way been able to lower the amount of kids going back to child labour.
Before I left I saw this group of maybe 20 boys around the age of 8-10. ..also child labourers of some sort. I said "hi" to them, but I got absolutely no response. They all just stood their in complete silence ...looking at me. ..this tall white boy with a strange hair style.

Today a pedophile came to the office where I work. He was involved in some type of shelter for kids in the area and looked for information about some girl. He used to be in prison here, but was let out earlier along with his friend for some strange reason. He's European, so I started to talk to him when he sat down by me, not knowing until afterwards who he really was. I heard about him from some European girls that lived at the same guest home as him. Photos of them have been sent out to various institutions and organisations so he was recognized. He didn't get any help btw. I was also advised to stay away from him. No problem with that. I don't want to associate with him now when I know who he is.

My stomach has been all messed up lately, again, along with other things. *sigh*

The Tower of Silence, Ganesh, and Mr Muscle.

It was an interesting week. I won't be able to cover it all... But I'll share the most interesting parts.

Last Wednesday was the first day of the Ganesh festival. The biggest festival of the year in Bombay. A festival where they celebrate the pink elephant god Ganesh. We had the day off, so we took the opurtunity to roam around and discover more of Bombay.

We started up with taking a taxi tour to some big points of interests. It was fun and interesting, and nice to have that done... but it was a rip-off, Rupeevise. We started off at Gateway of India, and some of the places we visited were a Jain temple, the biggest open laundry in Asia (where people from all over Bombay get their clothes washed), Hanging Gardens (highest view point in Bombay), the Gandhi house (where he started the "Quit India" movement), and The Tower of Silence (the place the Parsi people lay their dead and let the vultures eat their flesh and the bones. Unfortunately it was a gated area with a thick djungle around it, so we barely saw anything of the building).

After that was when the big time, random, walk around southern Bombay started. We walked around randomly... trying to catch various Ganesh celebrations. We could spot them by the heavy drumming ..and just followed the sound. On the street celebrations, smaller groups walk down the streets drumming and dancing in front of a cart with a statue of Ganesh. They also throw redish powder at each other (and sometimes innocent bypassers). i wanted to get that red stuff on me, so I joined in a group when they walked in to an alley. They happily throw some of that in my direction.
In an other group some happy youngsters took me in the hand and dragged me in to their party and wanted me to join in and dance with them. So... I did a little of that. Not as a religious thing, but as a cultural thing. They were a happy bunch and I got some great photo opurtunities. Sebastian avoided the whole ting and hid in the background. He didn't want to ruin is clothes with that red powder. That was probably wise, because now I have hard time getting rid of that from my clothes. They still have a pinkish tone in the used-to-be-white parts.
The walk back was quiet interesting. We where in an area where no white men seem to go. We were the only white boys for blocks, and blocks, and blocks. Hundreds and hundreds of Indians laughed at me, a white boy with red powder in my face and clothes. Yes... hundreds ...litterally, and many of them said various things in Hindi to me (or in the local language).

During our journey we suddently run in to a leper that walked down a narrow vegetable market. It was an old man with a long white beard, and who had his face, arms, and body completely covered with boils. It came so unexpected and as a schock. He was walking around begging for money. Out of instinct I just kept walking, because I didn't know what else to do. I thought that it was contageous, but now afterwards I realized that he probably wasn't. Otherwise the people around him wouldn't have ignored him the way they did. I feel really sorry for that man when I think back about him. How lonely he must feel, despite all the people around him.
The other day a young boy came to me when my taxi stopped, and asked for money. His face was burned off and he had no nose or lips, and no left hand. I usually don't give money to beggars, but in this case I didn't have heart to turn him down, so I gave him a few rupees. I don't feel like a "hero" for doing that though, and I don't deserve a golden star for that ether.

After writing about these last things, it almost makes it seem pathetic that I should complain about my new housing. Well, I'll do it anyway. We moved from one dump in to another. The good part: We have our own rooms and our well needed privacy (nothing personal against each other - I promise). It's not as much of a rip-off as other places, and it's still in a good location. The bad part: No air condiotion, and the fan in the ceiling doesn't do all the job it should, plus the noise.... *sigh*. Unless I lay still, directly under the fan, I will still sweat lots.
Here, at Apollo Guest House (the Colaba Causeway spot), they seemed to forget the importance of clean bathrooms/toilets. Yes, we share that with other people, including the staff, so I always shower with my slippers on. One would think that the staff could spend more time cleaning, instead of just sitting and reading the newspaper, watch Bollywood movies or Indian shows on TV, or just walking around doing nothing.
So I bought a bottle of "Mr Muscle" cleaning spray that I spray on various things that seem too greasy. I'm not a big fan of greasy door handles.
Well, they seem to have done some cleaning lately... I wonder if seing me carrying around that Mr Muscle bottle was a hint? Well, I guess I should give them the benefit of a doubt. They are nice after all, and I can order a cold Pepsi from them for only 20 rupees.

Wow... I guess this was my longest post so far. I you made it here... thanks!

Oh... btw... I have lost almost 4 kilos so far :)

Namaste! My first Hindi class. / I keep meeting crazy peole.

Today Sebastian and I went to the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, where we had to meet with our coordinator Soumya and with Neela, who takes care of the international students. We will be spending one day a week there in general. For Hindi classes every week. Every other week we will have independent studies about some social issue in India of our choice, and every other week we will have a field trip to a place of our choice.
We got side tracked on our way to the school by the way. The rickshaw driver didn't speak English, and misunderstood where we wanted to go, so we ended up far away in the wrong direction ..by the Sion train station. Fool... I don't like when people pretend they understand when they in fact don't ..or just guess.

Today we had our Hindi class ....quiet interesting. We learned parts of the alphabet.. and how to pronounce them. Booooy... we had some serious problems with some of the sounds. Both the pronounciation... and hearing the difference between some of the sounds. Our home work is to memorize the vowels and the signs.

The journey back was interesting. Before the train was about to stop at the end station (and still going), suddenly a hoard of chubby middle aged Indian men jumped on the train .. and started to tackle each other and yell. I thought that some type of riot was going on, or some type of police chase. But it just turned out to be people going home after a working day and they wanted to make sure that they had seats to sit on. I almost got my camera knocked off my hands.

Yesterday when I was about to cross the road, some man pointed at my ear, and i thought that I had something there. So I tried to take away whatever that might have been. then he took some type of small stick and put it in my ear ..and dug out some ear wax (I swear that I cleaned them just a day or two ago). That was way bizarre. The he started to point at my hair and said something like "Schampoo! Schampoo!" ...I just walked away and ignored that nut case.