Life affirming, yes, that's the idea!
Well it got off to an interesting start... I arrived with plenty of time to spare, 2 hours before the rendezvous I had planned - at Costa's coffeeshop next to the checkin - as we had etickets, I assumed McT couldn't go through without me. There was no Costa's. There was a Caffe Nero. Upon enquiry I ascertained it had been Costa's before. No probs, I thought, arming myself with latte and positioning myself prominently in view.
Time passed.
I did a crossword.
The rendezvous time came and went.
Then it was 2 hours before the flight. Then 1 1/2.
The queue for checking in was diminishing. I went and spoke to customer relations, and the moustachio'd man there told me to check in at the machine. It swallowed my credit card. Back to moustachio - he waved me towards a line called Fast Bag Drop. Fast it certainly wasn't. But I managed to get a man to unlock the machine, rescue my card (phew! I had no other means of support) and check me in.
As I stepped through Immigration the other end, there was a weary McT, had been able to check in and had got me a seat too, and for an hour and a half had been standing near the security waiting for me, probably convinced I had met with an accident as I was by then convinced he had!
So we flew, about an hour late arriving in Bombay, and then the usual bureaucracy, slightly dubious smells and imperfect air-conditioning that makes the airport here such a welcoming place after an 8 1/2 hour flight! Although we thought my destination (a friend's flat) and McT's (a hotel) were close, the stern woman in the prepaid taxi booth insisted we take one each, though at under $6US for an hour's ride we weren't really complaining. The taxis had not changed, literally, since 1976 when I was living in India). Many times patched up, with windows constantly at half mast, needing large draughts of water like patient camels, these black and yellow cabs fart their way around Bombay emitting huge gouts of smoke. My driver was somewhere on the wrong side of 3 score years and ten, with a venerable white beard and a twinkly eye. My rusty Hindi kicked in enough to enquire about the state of the taxi, petrol, water etc. We swept semimajestically into town along concrete highways lined with small shops, huts, hoardings, and then he started asking passers by for the suburb we were looking for. I rang my pal Nandu on my mobile phone, and gave it to Methuselah, who promptly turned it upside down and started shouting into the earpiece. Finally we drove up to a 25-story building in a leafy area - and there was Nandu, beaming face the same as when I first met him in '75 - but no hair at all, compared with the afrostyle he then affected! What a relief. He and his Goanese neighbour carried my bags in and settled me down with a refreshing rum and Coke - and I have been in the flat ever since, enjoying the breeze and views from 19 floors up, very disinclined to go into the hot and pullulating city below... a girl comes to cook dinner, and breakfast (we had idlis - fermented rice and dal made into cakes and steamed, served with gunpowder - red chilli powder and dal - and oil!) Absolutely delicious. She's just made me a nice big cup of milky coffee, south Indian style.
McT is being the sightseer, I am impressed with his determination to get into the place. I guess if I'd never seen it, I would share the feeling...
Thanks for this report, Clary! And of course we are hoping to hear more.
(And I'm glad, you don't to complain about 'strange Indian keyboards' :wink: )
[You got the message re vinsan, did you?]
Yes thanks! I love the international element - you getting a msg from Vin and ringing Fiona who msges me so I call McT...
The Indian keyboard is NORMAL!!! Not like the Frog and German varieties!
Bombay already?!
Oh, Clary, I'm so jealous! I love India!
Keep posting. I'm vicariously travelling with you!
I was thinking more about Turkish keyboards - the Frogs and we have normal European ones :wink:
(And it was really transcontinetal, since A2K's servers in USA were involved as well. :wink: )
It's truly enervating though, jetlag + heat + humidity - I can't bring myself to leave the flat!
Well, I do hope that this will settle soon and you'll get 'used' to it.
gasp, choke, cough, gag --- suffocating with envy. but really really happy for you two, pleeeeeaaaaaase keep posting as often as you can!
shniff, bombay, shniiifff. i wish i could be there for the gathering on the 14th...
Ooh, it's a gathering now, is it? How dignified. 'Wherever 2 or 3 are gathered together...
Clary wrote:Ooh, it's a gathering now, is it? How dignified. 'Wherever 2 or 3 are gathered together...
I am waiting for Tommorrow's Lunch with Clary and Mc
Thanks for the posts Clary
Sounds fascinating.
Is everyone relaxed about calling the city Mumbai or Bombay? Or is Bombay non pc these days. You will soon be over the jet lag/taxi journey
Best wishes to you all from Mrs steve as well...
many bombay-ites (ok, i don't know THAT many) - so the few that i know keep calling it bombay. partly a habbit, and partly as a reaction against the hindu nationalists (i forget whether it was a branch of BJP, or RSS) that pushed for the name change. actually, most of them use both, sort of interchangeably, but bombay more often. vinsan, superG, which do you use?
dagmaraka wrote:many bombay-ites (ok, i don't know THAT many) - so the few that i know keep calling it bombay. partly a habbit, and partly as a reaction against the hindu nationalists (i forget whether it was a branch of BJP, or RSS) that pushed for the name change. actually, most of them use both, sort of interchangeably, but bombay more often. vinsan, superG, which do you use?
Its MUMBAI dag,
Reason, The Natives of Mumbai are fishermen who praise a goddess named "Mumba Devi".... The sufix "Aai" means "MOTHER" in the native language so combined Mumba + aai = Mumbai
Thats the origin.
bombay was put by portugese when they first saw mumbai, and called it a Good Bay (i.e Bom Bay).... but mumbai was not Forced by any Hindu nationalist party, its the Original Name instead.
Thanks for that input, vinsan. Very interesting.
Don't miss the giant Nandi in Bangalore or the even better one in Mysore just down the road from Bangalore. Visit the giant sculpture of the religious Nandi which is Shivas holy bull by walking up the stairs from the bottom. At the 600 th step you will arrive at the Nandi have a talk with the local sadhu living there in the cave then climb up the remaining steps to 1000 to get to the top. From there take a taxi to the big white hotel you see in the diatance on the way up for afternoon tea. Then plan on being downtown at the old palace for when thet turn on the lights. If your enthusiastic drive 1 hour out of town to the nearby lake for the only surely safe swimm in freshwater in India.
i know, vinsan. was just saying what my friends from mumbai say - most still call it bombay, for those reasons i wrote about. i know it's imposed, but it seems many mumbai-ites (?) got used to bombay and keep using it. i use both, whichever comes first, though i try to be careful and respectful and stick to mumbai, especially when i don't know people well or it's an official occasion or so...
Quote:Rohit Gupta is a Bombay-based writer. E-mail him at.....
see? that's from today's The Hindu ;-)
(and one of the friends i spoke of)
Hey Clary, McTag,
Welcome to India.
Algis.Kemezys wrote:Don't miss the giant Nandi in Bangalore or the even better one in Mysore just down the road from Bangalore. Visit the giant sculpture of the religious Nandi which is Shivas holy bull by walking up the stairs from the bottom. At the 600 th step you will arrive at the Nandi have a talk with the local sadhu living there in the cave then climb up the remaining steps to 1000 to get to the top. From there take a taxi to the big white hotel you see in the diatance on the way up for afternoon tea. Then plan on being downtown at the old palace for when thet turn on the lights. If your enthusiastic drive 1 hour out of town to the nearby lake for the only surely safe swimm in freshwater in India.
Algis, the Nandi hills near Bangalore is not so great...
You speak of hills in Mysore (3.5 hours from bangalore) and then a big white hotel...I guess you are referring to Chamundi hills and the Lalitha mahal palace hotel in Mysore.
Thanks, Chinmayee, for being there - arriving in Bangalore this evening and have 2/3 days before going off to Mudumalai jungle retreat.
The friend I'm staying with calls it Slumbai, so political correctness is far from his mind! It seems that when speaking English, people revert more often to Bombay - or maybe I'm imagining it. Age has something to do with it too, young things like vinsan haven't been indoctrinated with years of Bombay! Difficult for us oldies to change....
