Smoke Gets In Your Eyes

Before we left Canada, we would tap the iPhone Weather app to check out the temperatures in the cities we would visit in India.  Along with the temperature, we could see if it was ‘clear’, ‘cloudy’, ‘thunderstorms’, ‘overcast’  etc. Normal stuff. Every time we clicked on Mumbai, however, the descriptor was something we hadn’t seen before. Smoke. Huh? As our plane cut through the clouds to land in Mumbai, the answer materialized  Mumbai is a far-as-the-eye-can-see city of over 20 million documented residents and another 6 million undocumented citizens who live in the city's slums. Nearly 100,000 taxis, 5,000 buses and literally millions of cars and tuk-tuks share the road each day.  Smoke, as you've probably guessed already, turns out to be a nice word for smog.  And there's lots of it in Mumbai.  

That’s the bad news. But if you can cut through the pollution, you’ll be rewarded with a view of a truly remarkable city.  Stunning architecture includes buildings from the British heyday including the Victoria Terminus railway station (a World Heritage site), the magnificent Taj Palace hotel, the Prince of Wales Museum and the imposing India Gate side by side with newly built, soaring, innovative skyscrapers of glass and steel. A world-class waterfront stretches 28 miles and a bustling, growing business sector includes many of the country's leading pharmaceutical, IT and manufacturing players.  If Delhi is the political and intellectual heart of India, then Mumbai is its economic pulse.  

The spectacular Taj Hotel dominates the waterfront.

Victoria Terminus Station, a World Heritage site. 

The Prince of Wales Museum

The Gateway of India, built on Mumbai's waterfront to commemorate the landing of King George V and Queen Mary when they visited India in 1911. 

The Mumbai Four Seasons is a stunning, contemporary building with glamour to spare.  After entering our beautiful, spacious room, we threw back the curtains to reveal the view above -- and got a sobering reminder that India is a country of 'the haves' and the 'have-nots' ... and more often than not, they live right next door to each other.  

On the subject of the ‘haves’, the highrise building above belongs to the founder of Reliance Industries, Markesh Ambani. He is India's wealthiest man and he built it as a residence for himself, his wife and three children -- complete with three helicopter pads. Yes, the whole building was constructed to house just five people.  After moving in, however, Reliance suffered a series of losses that led Ambani to suspect that the building had bad karma. He moved his family out, and the building is now used as office space. Such are the lives of the wealthy in India. 

In Mumbai, Dabba Wallahs, wearing distinct Nehru white caps, hand deliver over 200,000 hot lunches from homes to offices across the city each day. Their precise system has attracted the likes of Harvard who have studied how it is possible that, over its 100 year history, a meal has never been delivered to the wrong desk -- unless you count the one in the excellent movie, The Lunchbox (on Netflix, if you’re interested.)

Having trouble getting that stubborn stain out of your shirt? Looking for a way to brighten up your dingy towels?  Well, hand ‘em over to the professionals at the Dhobi Ghat (or open air Laundromat). Many of the city’s largest hotels, hospitals and residents swear by the skills of these cleaning specialists who will beat the heck out of your clothing on rocks until even the most stubborn stain cries for mercy, dry it alongside a sea of other laundry on clothes lines, iron it, starch it, package it up and bike it to your home. Can’t imagine this kind of rough treatment does anything for the longevity of your clothes, but it’s a system that has been working here for over 100 years so they must be doing something right. 

Spice shopping at one of Mumbai’s local markets. We came away with enough spices to make every type of Indian dish for the next 20 years or so. 

Our final stop on our India tour?  Beautiful Kochi in Southern India, home to miles of inland canals, palm trees and the sandy beaches of the Arabian Sea. Our eyes and our lungs are looking forward to the break.