Monday, April 11th was Sister and FBIL’s last day in Mumbai. Mondays are a rough day in Mumbai- all of the museums and tourist places are closed. So we decided to spend the day on Marine Drive, walking around, hopefully with a good breeze at our backs, and visiting a ‘hanging’ garden. I apparently never took notes for this day, and so, a month later, the time-line and details are a bit messy; please bear with me.
My husband had to work again, of course, so the three of us piled into the car with my driver. We decided to visit the ‘hanging’ gardens first, but before we arrived, my driver, incredibly excited, told us he wanted to show us something. Curious, we let him drive us through narrow alleyways that certainly are not used to seeing our shiny black car. Eventually, we could drive no longer, and we stopped and parked. The wall closest to the car had a clothes string hanging, and freshly laundered attire, underwear included, was drying in the sun. We are parked next to a large dumpster. I nearly took a step in a used diaper as I exited the car.
My driver walked us a short way to a flight of dirty cement stairs. It opened to a large pool of water. Currently, the water level was quite low, and we walked down twenty or so steps to reach the water’s edge. My driver told us it would fill, nearly to the top, during monsoon season. Various people were scattered about the levels of stairs. Some were washing and drying clothes, others were reading the morning paper, and still others were buying and selling food. One man was getting his morning shave. A small (fresh?) pipe of water jutted out near the water edge- people were drinking and bathing in that.
The water in the pool was rather disgusting- trash and twigs floating along the edges, a nasty greenish tone indicating too much growth. But my driver’s face was simply shining with excitement. He didn’t see the nastier parts of the pool. He only had eyes for the ducks. We stopped and stared at them for a while. Like the dogs of Mumbai, the heat must be a bit too much for the ducks as well. Many were just sitting and dozing in the sun, but some were splashing about in the waters, dipping their beaks in search of food.
I’m not up to date on duck names, but I definitely recognized some mallards. There were big ducks, little ducks. Frisky ducks, sleeping ducks. Sister soon realized why this place was special- it was the only place (as far as we know) where you could see ducks in Mumbai. Presumably they must be in many other places. But there were well over one hundred ducks here, and, looking back, I don’t remember seeing them in the past five months of living in Mumbai. It was indeed a special place.
My driver excitedly asked if he could buy some bread to feed the ducks. He ran off, came back with a loaf of bread that he repeatedly told us not to eat, for fear of getting sick, and we each took a slice and began to feed the birds.
I immediately launched into Mary Poppins mode and started singing ‘feed the birds’ peacefully in my head. But soon the peace stopped and became annoyance. The birds didn’t like my bread! What were we doing wrong? For all the skinny animals we’d come across in Bombay- the thieving monkeys, the cows that would chase you for corn, the patient begging dogs, the cat that eats our garbage every night- never once had an animal NOT wanted the food. I looked over at Sister and FBIL. They were faring just as poorly as I. But my driver- he was in his element. The birds were snatching up his bread like the monkeys stole our potato chips. He taught us his trick. The bread has to be rolled tight, so it was denser and would sink. We tried it. It worked sometimes. But most of those birds just didn’t want our bread.
We had a whole loaf, which would be fun if the ducks were participating, but I just moved on to feeding the crows- they’d catch it mid-air in their beak if you tossed it just right. At least they’d play with me!
It was very hot, and it took a long time to finish the loaf of bread. At one point, I turned, and behind us was a young guy in a towel. He was about to, apparently, bathe in the little pipe of presumably fresh water. We happened to have our cameras out, and he begged us not to take a photo of him bathing. Who would do such a thing? As soon as I had noticed he was going to strip off his towel, I had politely turned my back. Still, what a different life- bathing in public with the ducks, fearful of tourists taking a photo of you.
Eventually the heat and our impatience with the ducks forced us back to the car. I was still feeling weak from the lack of food and sickness of the day before, so the heat felt much worse than usual. I was quite happy to be back in the air-conditioned car.
We backed up, turned around, and found the ‘hanging’ gardens. I say ‘hanging’ because I think it is a bit of a misnomer to label them hanging gardens, when clearly, the majority of the flowers (or trees, at least) were growing straight out of the ground. Yes, there were a few arches, with flowers that grew from the ground, up to the top of the arch, and then, yes, I suppose you could say those flowers were in fact hanging. But really, it was just a garden. A nice, peaceful garden, quiet because you couldn’t see the surrounding traffic, but still just a garden.
We entered the garden by walking up a steep flight of stairs. It was around noon, and incredibly hot, so there weren’t too many people there to spoil our enjoyment. We slowly made our way through the lanes, enjoying the pretty blooms. It wasn’t exotic, or filled to the brim with bright flowers. It was instead the type of place where it would be perfectly normal, while sitting on the grass enjoying a book, for a jacket-wearing rabbit with a pocket watch to come running up shouting that it is late for an important date.
Perhaps our (or my, at least) favorite part of the garden was the shrubbery. They were cut, Edward Scissorhands style, in various animal shapes. We had fun identifying the less obvious ones- I would pick crazy animals, such as an anteater or raptor, whereas Sister would insist that they were, in fact, peacocks or other animals actually observed in India. For some, there were descriptive plaques, and she always won.
I loved the gardens, and had it not been so incredibly hot, would have enjoyed staying longer. But the heat was beating down, I felt weak, and more and more people were bravely talking to us, so we were soon back in the car.
Our next stop was Marine Drive. We stopped at the end of Nariman point and then walked up along the Arabian Sea, until we reached the Intercontinental Hotel. It was hot, we were thirsty, and we insisted that our driver go inside with us to cool down.
He was a bit nervous, I think. He had told me before that he wasn’t even allowed in the hotels for using the bathrooms. I had doubted that, at the time- how could they do that? And I figured it was a self-imposed, class/caste issue. But who knows. We went up to the second level, insisted upon a window seat, got a bottle of water and picked out two pizzas to share.
It is really fun introducing new things to my driver. I remember how excited he was to just touch my computer. He was the same here. He wanted a picture to prove to his son and friends he was in the hotel. I really wish we’d gone to a nicer hotel. This particular hotel, though nice, wasn’t very grand looking. The walls were a sort of gray color- they might even be cement. The decorations were minimal. All and all, had I thought it out more clearly, I could have taken him to a much fancier place. But maybe this was better as it wasn’t too intimidating.
The pizza arrived, and my driver was shocked that it was thin crust, which is our family’s personal preference. He insisted it wasn’t real pizza, and called it chapattis pizza, something you’d make at home. So we thought that was funny, but I also felt bad that he didn’t really like his first hotel meal. One pizza, a chicken bbq, was very good. The other, a pesto was only so-so.
After we ate and took photos, we walked back down Marine Drive to our car, stopping constantly to study the massive black crabs near the water. They were fascinating and a bit creepy. We then headed back to Bandra. We had intended to look at Bandra Fort, but it was closed (well, no signs indicated it was closed, but we got yelled at by a security guy, so we retreated). We showed Sister and FBIL the beautiful Catholic Church near Bandra, and then drove back home.
Sister and FBIL, despite arriving in Mumbai a few days after Mom and Auntie, had used the same airline, and had arrived on the same flight. So I had, in my head, assumed that Sister and FBIL had the same departure time, as well (2:15 am). So we came home, knew we still had plenty of time for fun (it was only early afternoon), and decided to check them into their flights.
Thank goodness FBIL actually read the boarding pass. The flight was NOT the same departure as Mom and Auntie, but actually hours earlier! Fortunately, we still had time to eat some dinner, and then go for a last walk before they had to leave.
We walked along Carter Road, watching the sunset. It was still muggy, but at least the sun wasn’t burning our skin. We left when it became dark, they showered one last time, and I let my driver take them to the airport.
Family and Friends Fun Days were over.
Epilogue:
It turns out that FBIL was the only one who didn’t get the ‘Bombay Boogie’ as Mom called it. She was the first, on the last day of our Jaipur trip. The morning after, Auntie and I succumbed to it. Poor Fez got it while in line to check her bags at the airport, so I’m guessing she suffered the most. Thank goodness we insisted on giving her some of our antibiotics before she’d left. Fez actually stayed sick for a while, several days, poor girl. Sister got sick immediately when she was back home in the US. Five out six getting sick. Not good odds!
I had been given so many gifts from everyone. The poptarts, chocolates, and cereals have all been eaten, and the oatmeal is nearly gone. The toothpaste and face washes are wonderful still, and I’m so happy to not conserve my dental floss.
One item I was given, a smoke alarm from Auntie, has already been put to use. Less than a week ago, I was sitting, home alone, late in the evening, when it started to shriek. I jumped up in panic, removed it from the wall to shut it up (oh, it made me miss cooking at my parents house; the alarm always goes off to tell you when food is done), and opened my door to see what was happening.
I have to say, I forgot to open the door with my left hand, or a towel, or anything like that, but fortunately it was a sort-of false alarm, so I wasn’t burned. When I opened the door, a huge cloud of white smoke billowed into my apartment. I slammed the door shut, coughing like mad. I have been in some pretty thick fog, but I had never ‘seen’ zero visibility like that before. But inhaling the nasty smoke made me realize it wasn’t from a fire, but was bug spray.
They have sprayed it in our building before, but I had been outside, in my car, and hadn’t realized they do it inside our building as well. When I was outside viewing it, a man, just like the bug exterminator in Men in Black, walked around with a huge canister and hose and sprayed everything. It smelled awful, and my driver (who’d just dropped me off at home) wouldn’t let me out of the car until my mouth and nose were covered.
I’m glad I had experienced it before, because I realized very quickly it was the mosquito spray, and didn’t panic too much, although I’m sure it was not even remotely good for me to have such a big mouthful of the stuff in my lungs. I grabbed a cloth from my cupboard, slapped it across my face, and continued to gchat with a few friends. But the next day I had a horrible headache from the exposure.
In other news, Mom has been desperately eager to teach her students cricket, but a combination of bad weather and bad behavior has put those plans on hold. But she has, in the meantime, much to my driver’s delight, become an e-mail pen pal to him.
I am going to visit Fez in June, so I’m incredibly happy that she gets to plan the tour and I can just sit back and enjoy myself!
Auntie retired from her job, and now gets to enjoy her days relaxing peacefully and visiting her children.
Sister and FBIL are planning a 2012 wedding in Indiana, and I get to annoy Sister with wedding questions and entirely too many photos of dresses I think she might like.
Oh, for one last time- I didn’t take a single photo in any FAFFD blog. They were all taken by my guests: Mom, Auntie, Fez, Sister, and FBIL.
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