January 7, 2008

Day Three: Tata Sons & More Tourism
I reneged on the tentative arrangement to meet with a classmate to run at 6:30 AM since I had written until 1:30 AM the night before. I showered, dressed, and went to breakfast. I learned that bitterwort juice is absolutely awful, but the fresh figs, pomegranate seeds, and papaya made me happy. I met a gentleman named Ravi Iyer, an engineer, development consultant, and professor at Berkeley. He was Indian by ethnicity but this was his first time in India; he was visiting to help with a consulting project.

The Tata building looked very similar to many others in the commercial district, which was less congested and cleaner than most streets I had seen. The hospitality was outstanding and the opportunity to speak with top executives of such a huge and successful company was fascinating. Complete notes are found here, but the major takeaways were that Americans can be overwhelmingly ignorant, the US economy could very well fall behind India and China in my lifetime, and Tata is a socially-minded, forward-thinking company that is well-positioned to succeed in the global economy.

Upon leaving Tata, we moved down the street to Bombay Shop, an orderly and extensively stocked shop where I purchased a traditional Indian shirt, which I ended up wearing the rest of the day. My first cab ride in Mumbai brought us back to the hotel. I only burst out laughing twice because of the ridiculous driving. I still don’t understand the rules of the road, but it just seems to work.
We changed quickly and left for a mosque accessible only through a path cutting through the sea from the shore. We made our visit while the tide was out, which meant pungent smells of smoke, salt, waste and rotting fish. This was where the beggars hung out. Images of amputees and the crippled lying in circles of three to five, chanting “ya la” in time while a leader shouted above them haunt my mind. Children picked through abundant trash and held their hands out while blind young and old shouted repetitively. The mosque itself was aesthetically interesting, but I sensed no spirit of holiness. Unwelcoming glances from the presumed faithful were offset by other residents that asked us to take pictures with them. There was a food stall serving the multitude that just sat around. Periodically a prayer chant would come mournfully over the loudspeakers, to which I had expected some reaction from those present, but life went on as if we were watching a ballgame. Putting myself in the shoes of the Muslims I decided that the photography may have been getting excessive and pushed the group to head back.

From the mosque, we took another cab ride which included a screeching tire stop to avoid a collision to a street market where we were told we could test our bargaining skills. I had expected a busy area with stalls on both sides of a walkway, which was basically true. I did not expect to be pestered by guys selling Indian drums everywhere I went. The traffic was heavy, but Indian merchants know American chumps when they see them and focus inordinate attention on securing a high margin sale. I bought a pair of sandals for 90 rupees (roughly $2.25) that our professor said we would need for the bathrooms in Delhi, where our accommodations will be a “more authentic” Indian experience.

I also parted with some rupees to buy some milk and rice for a young girl. Once I bought into buying something, we went down a sidestreet to a small store where she pointed at a bulk can of dry milk and a huge bag of rice, which would have fed her family for a month and cost 1200 rupees ($40). I laughed, recognizing I didn't even have that much cash and pointed at smaller portions. In America I am more willing to buy food than just give money, but I think that she just recognized that this is a better way to get money than sticking your hand out like other beggars. I asked her to take a picture with me and she followed me back to our group, where she had a brief exchange in Hindi with a classmate. She ended the conversation asking my Indian classmate not to be angry with me and ran off, confirming the thought that I had been duped.

Back at the hotel, a classmate inquired about the amputees at the mosque to a concierge, who told us that organized groups cut off limbs to provoke sympathy, sometimes within people's will and other times against it. Regardless of the veracity of this atrocity, the sheer number of beggars meant that those in need would never gain a foothold above poverty.
Feeling too tired to wait for dinner and having no interest in joining comrades at a club, I went back to my room and ordered a delightful curry dinner, took a long hot shower, and took to writing. I planned to wake at 6:15 AM and run with a classmate through the streets of Mumbai.