I don't think anyone would argue with me when I say that Mumbai is a bustling metropolis. It would be difficult to call a city of 20 million people anything else, after all. You have so many people in this city that many are forced to sleep on the street - there isn't enough housing for everyone. On a nightly basis I will pass by people sleeping in doorways, on medians in the road, or just on the sidewalk (which provides an explanation for why many Mumbaikars choose to walk down the middle of the street rather than the sidewalk). Traffic is so crowded and the roads are in such poor condition that it is not unusual for my colleagues to have a 2 hour commute to work - each way - every day. And most people in this city (something like 90% of people here) don't even use personal transportation but rely on the public buses and trains! I have yet to take any public transportation, but I've heard that it isn't unheard of for people to crowd themselves onto the subways that they will fall off the train as it's moving, fall onto the tracks and die. Similarly, I've heard stories about inter-city bus trips through the desert where the ticket inside the bus costs full price, and a ticket for hanging onto the outside of the bus is half price. As long as you're ok with the guarantee that if you fall off, the bus will leave you where you land, you get a great deal! This entire country is overcrowded, but Mumbai is a special case. People from all regions of India flock to Mumbai because it is the largest city in the country, so of course there must be more opportunities for jobs and housing here than elsewhere, right? Wrong. The stark majority of people in this city live in slums, and I've already mentioned those that don't even have that luxury.
With the monsoons coming, I find myself wondering what exactly is going to happen to this city with the change in seasons. An independent report released recently showed that Mumbai's readiness for the monsoons is abysmal. It's rained a few times already, and the roads clearly don't have proper drainage to handle just a simple shower, let alone consecutive days of hard rains. Actually, that reminds me - I need to invest in a substantial pair of good rain boots. Genius that I am, I didn't bring anything appropriate from the states over here with me.
Side note - as I'm writing this blog entry, the guy who is in my apartment cleaning it today just came over and turned the air conditioner in the living room off as I'm sitting right here. Um, excuse me, buddy? I turned it on when I walked in the room. I'm wearing a freaking fleece top for crying out loud! I don't want to be rude so I'll wait until he leaves to turn it back on. Does that make me a coward? Please don't judge me.
Anyway, Mumbai is huge. But actually...it's not. I'm learning very quickly that the circles in which I travel in Mumbai are quite limited, and I'm starting to feel like I'm back in Durham living in the "Duke bubble" or in EGR and the bubble I lived in during high school. While this is indeed a city of 20 million people or more (probably more - I don't exactly trust the government here to conduct an accurate census of the slums), people here don't cross cultural or social barriers to mix with each other. I'm not sure if this has anything to do with the lingering caste system, or if there are other drivers behind this dynamic. Regardless, the friends I am making and the people I am meeting - seemingly randomly - on a daily basis in my social life are actually part of a small sub-set of the Mumbai population, and it's unlikely that I'm going to become friends with anyone outside of this sub-set.
The limitations on my social circle are four-fold: First, you have socioeconomic limitations. The places that I am visiting in my social life for dinner or drinks are not accessible to >99% of the population here. People can't afford to spend the equivalent of $10 on a meal for their entire family, let alone a single drink at a bar (by the way - have I mentioned how alcohol is so expensive here? Food is cheap - I rarely have a meal for more than $2 US, but drinks here carry the same prices as in the US - mostly due to state-level taxes). The second limitation on my social circle is the fact that I speak English, and only English. I've been shocked - shocked! - at how well everyone speaks English here. I would expect the people at work to speak well, but the randoms that I'm meeting out and about are similarly fluent. It turns out, of course, that this does not mean that the entire city of Mumbai is fluent in English - far from it. It's just an issue of selection bias that is skewing my perspective. Third - I'm not actually hanging out in a very diverse set of locations. I've mentioned Bandra a lot - after all, it had a lot of fun bars and restaurants, and many of my friends live there or spend a lot of time there. Bandra isn't actually a big neighborhood, and it is largely populated by expats, Bollywood stars, or Indian people who have a lot of international exposure. That explains why the only crepe restaurant I've come across in Mumbai is in Bandra - that neighborhood's target clientele are the people in Mumbai most likely to want to eat (relatively) expensive crepes. The fourth and final limitation on my social circle is related to common interests. There may be people in this city with the financial means, English speaking abilities, and home address that are the same as the people I am meeting, but they choose not to hang out at the same places I am frequenting. They may be home-bodies, have an aversion to bars that play Western pop music, or some other taste that keeps them away from the places I'm visiting.
With these four limitations in place, I'm starting to feel like a local - within my particular social sub-set at least. A few examples come to mind that illustrate what I mean. Last night, for example, I was planning to stay in and go to bed early. I rescheduled my first date with Mr. Pampered Man-child (which was supposed to be last night), and Ami Kevin and I put on pajamas and ordered take-out for dinner. It had the makings of a typical night for me in Chicago, actually :) Then Ami was contacted by one of her future Wharton classmates about going out at The Big Nasty, and she and Kevin decided to go join. Kevin hadn't yet experienced the bench-dancing phenomenon, and we had all realized that after two hours of lounging, we weren't as tired as we had expected. I tried to stick to my guns and stubbornly sat in bed listening to music, willing myself to go to sleep. Becoming bored, I picked up a call from Mr. Straight Talk, who then serenaded me again for about an hour (awww) with some original songs of his. He's pretty good, actually! Once I realized his lullabies weren't doing anything to make me tired, I decided to just man up and go dancing. When I arrived in Bandra, I walked in and saw Ami standing in a group, which included Ashwath - one of my future Booth classmates! Apparently he works with one of Ami's future Wharton classmates, and so he had been part of the group of people Ami and Kevin had gone out to meet up with. Small world!
Another example would be with my house party. Ami, Kevin and I invited people from all of the different areas of our lives here in Mumbai. We invited colleagues, friends of colleagues, random people we had befriended along the way, etc. It turns out that there were two connections between our invitees that we hadn't expected or anticipated. First, one of my Booth classmates (Hi Praveer!) knew one of Johanne's good friends, who I have become close with - Richa. They were classmates at IIT Delhi and had been meaning to connect since they were both in Bombay, and it took my housewarming party for them to actually hang out. The other connection was through another Booth classmate, who is friends with Kishore, who is Ami's friend from San Francisco. Like I said, it turns out that Mumbai is actually a very small town...
Thankfully for me, I'm not here long enough to start feeling suffocated by the bubble I'm living in. I'm still meeting new people weekly (if not daily) - interesting, intelligent, worldly people from diverse backgrounds...all of whom are spending time in my bubble. It's actually a little comforting to come to the realization of how small "my" Mumbai actually is - it makes it feel more like home.
With the monsoons coming, I find myself wondering what exactly is going to happen to this city with the change in seasons. An independent report released recently showed that Mumbai's readiness for the monsoons is abysmal. It's rained a few times already, and the roads clearly don't have proper drainage to handle just a simple shower, let alone consecutive days of hard rains. Actually, that reminds me - I need to invest in a substantial pair of good rain boots. Genius that I am, I didn't bring anything appropriate from the states over here with me.
Side note - as I'm writing this blog entry, the guy who is in my apartment cleaning it today just came over and turned the air conditioner in the living room off as I'm sitting right here. Um, excuse me, buddy? I turned it on when I walked in the room. I'm wearing a freaking fleece top for crying out loud! I don't want to be rude so I'll wait until he leaves to turn it back on. Does that make me a coward? Please don't judge me.
Anyway, Mumbai is huge. But actually...it's not. I'm learning very quickly that the circles in which I travel in Mumbai are quite limited, and I'm starting to feel like I'm back in Durham living in the "Duke bubble" or in EGR and the bubble I lived in during high school. While this is indeed a city of 20 million people or more (probably more - I don't exactly trust the government here to conduct an accurate census of the slums), people here don't cross cultural or social barriers to mix with each other. I'm not sure if this has anything to do with the lingering caste system, or if there are other drivers behind this dynamic. Regardless, the friends I am making and the people I am meeting - seemingly randomly - on a daily basis in my social life are actually part of a small sub-set of the Mumbai population, and it's unlikely that I'm going to become friends with anyone outside of this sub-set.
The limitations on my social circle are four-fold: First, you have socioeconomic limitations. The places that I am visiting in my social life for dinner or drinks are not accessible to >99% of the population here. People can't afford to spend the equivalent of $10 on a meal for their entire family, let alone a single drink at a bar (by the way - have I mentioned how alcohol is so expensive here? Food is cheap - I rarely have a meal for more than $2 US, but drinks here carry the same prices as in the US - mostly due to state-level taxes). The second limitation on my social circle is the fact that I speak English, and only English. I've been shocked - shocked! - at how well everyone speaks English here. I would expect the people at work to speak well, but the randoms that I'm meeting out and about are similarly fluent. It turns out, of course, that this does not mean that the entire city of Mumbai is fluent in English - far from it. It's just an issue of selection bias that is skewing my perspective. Third - I'm not actually hanging out in a very diverse set of locations. I've mentioned Bandra a lot - after all, it had a lot of fun bars and restaurants, and many of my friends live there or spend a lot of time there. Bandra isn't actually a big neighborhood, and it is largely populated by expats, Bollywood stars, or Indian people who have a lot of international exposure. That explains why the only crepe restaurant I've come across in Mumbai is in Bandra - that neighborhood's target clientele are the people in Mumbai most likely to want to eat (relatively) expensive crepes. The fourth and final limitation on my social circle is related to common interests. There may be people in this city with the financial means, English speaking abilities, and home address that are the same as the people I am meeting, but they choose not to hang out at the same places I am frequenting. They may be home-bodies, have an aversion to bars that play Western pop music, or some other taste that keeps them away from the places I'm visiting.
With these four limitations in place, I'm starting to feel like a local - within my particular social sub-set at least. A few examples come to mind that illustrate what I mean. Last night, for example, I was planning to stay in and go to bed early. I rescheduled my first date with Mr. Pampered Man-child (which was supposed to be last night), and Ami Kevin and I put on pajamas and ordered take-out for dinner. It had the makings of a typical night for me in Chicago, actually :) Then Ami was contacted by one of her future Wharton classmates about going out at The Big Nasty, and she and Kevin decided to go join. Kevin hadn't yet experienced the bench-dancing phenomenon, and we had all realized that after two hours of lounging, we weren't as tired as we had expected. I tried to stick to my guns and stubbornly sat in bed listening to music, willing myself to go to sleep. Becoming bored, I picked up a call from Mr. Straight Talk, who then serenaded me again for about an hour (awww) with some original songs of his. He's pretty good, actually! Once I realized his lullabies weren't doing anything to make me tired, I decided to just man up and go dancing. When I arrived in Bandra, I walked in and saw Ami standing in a group, which included Ashwath - one of my future Booth classmates! Apparently he works with one of Ami's future Wharton classmates, and so he had been part of the group of people Ami and Kevin had gone out to meet up with. Small world!
Another example would be with my house party. Ami, Kevin and I invited people from all of the different areas of our lives here in Mumbai. We invited colleagues, friends of colleagues, random people we had befriended along the way, etc. It turns out that there were two connections between our invitees that we hadn't expected or anticipated. First, one of my Booth classmates (Hi Praveer!) knew one of Johanne's good friends, who I have become close with - Richa. They were classmates at IIT Delhi and had been meaning to connect since they were both in Bombay, and it took my housewarming party for them to actually hang out. The other connection was through another Booth classmate, who is friends with Kishore, who is Ami's friend from San Francisco. Like I said, it turns out that Mumbai is actually a very small town...
Thankfully for me, I'm not here long enough to start feeling suffocated by the bubble I'm living in. I'm still meeting new people weekly (if not daily) - interesting, intelligent, worldly people from diverse backgrounds...all of whom are spending time in my bubble. It's actually a little comforting to come to the realization of how small "my" Mumbai actually is - it makes it feel more like home.
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