Bombay, Pt. One

BOMBAY-

This place is a mad-hatter’s New York. Bustle doesn’t even come close. Ratrace. It’s frantic. The rats are rabid. The mad-hatters’ jeering honks and hornblasts rise from the distant streets below like an odour. I don’t think this city will know what sleep is. But this is only my second night here.
It’s eight o’clock on the rooftop and the monsoon rains have cleansed the whole massive metropolis, and the wind has wiped the sky clean of clouds so maybe you can glimpse a star through the light-haze city-fog. It’s warm, but too humid to be comfortable. Or maybe it’s the hotel bar elevator music. A business hotel. Near the airport.

Welcome to Bombay.

The cabbie’s card today said Sayed- he said he’d drive us into South Mumbai, around for the day and back for 1300 rupees. I tried to bargain with half a heart- he said to pay him what we thought he deserved at the end. Tricky.
It’s 45 minutes into town from the hotel. And there’s one person for every square foot along the way. Mainly men though. Wiry old ones, spitting from shanty-shack doorways. Shiny skinny young ones dragging bamboo poles or stubborn cattle down the choked thoroughfares, sharp black eyes and black moustaches The traffic stutters, jumps and flows like a river of over-achieving ants and you know the cabs and rickshaws would climb over each other if they could. They nearly do. And they speak a language of sharp beeps and long HOOOORRRNS- a constant chatter filling the air, like whale-gossip under water.
We were silent for nearly the entire ride. It’s like taking a kid who’s been reading nothing but colouring books and dumping him in front of a 40-foot TV action movie in hyper-colour. We’re not used to it. We were speechless. People. People. People. People. People. Shacks, shanties, holes-in-walls, apartments, office buildings, people, people, people. Everywhere.
We drive into downtown and our driver lets us out near the Gateway of India- a massive archway beside the sea. We walk around the decadent Taj Mahal Hotel Palace and Tower as well. Then down through the Colaba market. Colourful, over-enthusiastic salesmen, wares that start to look the same from one block to the next- fabrics, leather sandals, bangles. We’re not looking to buy anything yet. We just walk. And it’s sticky sticky hot. Our shirts are stuck. Nobody else here seems to notice the heat.
We find our way back to our Cool Cab. It’s called that because of the AC. We sprang for it. Glad we did.
Driving through the mad-hatter maze into Khola Goda, looking for the Mahesh Lunch Home- seafood restaurant. Despite spirited honking, our driver can’t penetrate the clogged backstreets, so he points us in the direction of the restaurant.
It’s clean and cool inside. An aquarium with a lion-fish adorning the wall. About twelve staff standing around for a one-room restaurant with about 10 tables. The waiter upsells us deliciously. Even tells me the cheaper dish I want to order is “bad”- I should get the twice-as-expensive fresh-caught crab. It’s still cheap, so okay.
Spectacular food. I’m still full now. Huge prawns and spices and rices and crab in thick sauce and CRACK and suck the meat and your mouth burns and your stomach is like, What the hell is all this, like it started raining oil-paint in the land of Black and White, but it’s oh-so-good and filling me up, and those tiny little green and red candies wipe away the spice from your mouth after the meal anyway. A good meal.
It’s after 4 and we head back to the hotel. I pay Sayed the 1300. He did a good job.

This place is a madhouse.