Day 132: Hidden Mumbai with Pranav

Abby was a happy camper this morning - finally getting her pancakes for breakfast... In fact we were all happy, probably taking in 2,500 calories each like we were preparing for hibernation. Yes, breakfast was a buffet and we all, as Robin has coined the new saying, "took it for advantage".

When we initially looked at the plan, years ago, we had way more India in the schedule. More time in Mumbai, way more time in the North as well as Varanasi and longer in Agra and Delhi. As time went on, things got a little compressed. Part of it was a bit of a fear factor - things you read and see on TV influence you, whether the logical part of your brain disagrees or not. Beth had more and more reservations about India as we honed in on the final plan. It's understandable.... and not - and THAT is India in a nutshell. It's yin and yang, highs and lows, a tale of opposites, love and hate - you experience a wide range of emotions in this country of countries.

The plan then, was to hit some highlights, but not feel rushed in doing so. How do you accomplish this? In a country of this size and scope, it's not easy. Part of the luxury in our plan is that we are lucky enough to afford to jump around by air rather than train or car when we don't have to. The other part is to just not have lofty goals in each area - and this part of the plan has worked well so far. For Mumbai, rather than trying to cram stuff in yesterday, we saw a movie and acted like mall rats for a bit. Today, though, was the day we were hoping to see some of the real Mumbai. Just a slice of what is no doubt one of the top cities of the world.

Who would help us get the right slice of Mumbai that we were looking for? I'd done a ton of research on private tours, and landed on Pranav - the sole proprietor of Grand Mumbai Tours. He came highly recommended but what tweaked my interest was his passion and his proposed itinerary to see a side of Bombay we would have trouble seeing on our own.

We hopped in a metered cab and headed to Colaba in South Bombay - the heart of old Bombay. The drive in was fascinating - what a mix of sights: thousands of slums, packed in around rail yards and low rise tenements, leading to mid and higher level apartment buildings, then full on sky scrapers. The sea link highway from the North into Mumbai proper felt like we were flying over the ocean and about to land in a giant melting pot of wealth and classes. The city was still waking up at 7:30 so it was quite peaceful as we wound our way on Marine Drive, hugging the Arabian Sea shore.

When you're about to meet a guide, particularly a private one, there's a bit of nervousness there - kind of like a bit of a blind date (or so I've heard!), but on this date you had already committed to paying for an extremely expensive dinner. We went to Starbucks by the Taj Palace Hotel to meet Pranav. He arrive early, and we exchanged pleasantries and sat down for some small talk. He seemed very personable right away, and he had a way of engaging the kids while he found out what we were like and what we were interested in. Then we were off.

I guess I hadn't realized it, but Pranav had a driver out front in a mini van waiting for us., I assumed he would be driving, but this was better. We took off and he immediately turned around in the front seat and started laying out a story... The story did not stop, and it wove beautifully through the entire tour - incorporating questions and comments, new things that arose in conversation and topics of conversation that we were interested in. Pranav was an immediate hit - I felt like Neo plugging into the Matrix and downloading every topic that Pranav could throw at us: "Tank, give me the Caste system"....... Dum dum dum dum dum.... Ding! Got it! He was.... Fantastic.

First stop was at a wholesale area. We walked up to the fish wholesale warehouse, and Pranav said "you can go in, I will not as I will throw up, but it's safe... Just maybe a little intimidating for the girls". We took our chances just for a peak. It was an open warehouse a third of a football field big, full of 100% men and tons of crates of fish. There was a lot of noisy activity, but when we got to the middle of the place, there was a collective hush then murmur then an explosion of noise - kind of like half cheer, half catcall. It was amusing and not unexpected, but we still made an exit forthwith!

Next door was a gigantic indoor and outdoor wholesale flower market. Most of what they sold there were Marigolds for worship in the city at temples and shrines. As we made our way to the entrance, we noticed a bunch of the vendors doing an early morning prayer for the day....

The market was frenetic and amusing, all at the same time. The guys (they were almost 100% men in there) were pretty friendly. Lots of "where you from sir?". Pranav explained how the market worked and where the flowers came from and where they went after. He stopped at a couple of vendors he knew and bought some flowers (Marigolds were 50 rupees per Kilo - $1!) - "some for us, some for the temple later" he said.

He said that for prayers, you were not to smell the flowers, as the smell was for the gods. That was too late for Robin as she had her nose in there already! We had to chuck those ones out, lol.

Jeeves picked us up shortly after leaving the market. When we got in the car, Pranav encouraged us to throw pink flowers all over the car. We hesitated for a bit - we didn't want to mess with the guy's car - but hell, Pranav spread them all over the dash so we started throwing flowers around like it was someone's wedding. Pranav said he just liked the smell of the flowers. Ok, cool!

I'd read itineraries of other tour groups that do so called "slum tours". Pranav was against it, as I am....sometimes. In fact, I flip flop constantly. I believe, after having tried to make myself a little informed on the subject, that slums are not the cesspool of filth and decay you might expect. Of course, they have seriously poor water and sanitary resources (one toilet for every 1,200 people) and that can make some areas absolutely unbearable, but there is also community, ownership, entrepreneurship and security in the slums. Here is an interesting article on the Dharavi slum, Mumbai's largest slum - it paints a picture of how much productivity a slum can derive. Each slum has a different specialty as well. I find it equal parts sad and fascinating. The fact is, the whole slum phenomenon was really caused by a British rule of squatter's rights (ie, if you build it and manage to live there long enough before a government official notices it, it's yours to keep - now they've been building second and third stories (not larger abodes, just new families living on top of other families)), and the main problem with solving the slum issue is who to count as part of the slum (ie people there before a certain year, which excludes lots of other people).

We stopped near the Dhobi Ghats, a slum that was first built by the British as an area to do laundry for the British forces. A slum built up around it by people who owned and worked at the laundry works. We stood on an elevated street platform and had an in-depth discussion on the slum topic and the Dhobi Ghats specifically. The kids were as open with Pranav as we were, and they had a lot of questions.

Back in the car, we somehow got in to the discussion of hair. We told him how we'd noticed almost every Indian man had a moustache, which led into a hilarious discussion on the importance of hair as a masculine symbol in India - hilarious because Pranav has a fully shaved head due to a sudden bout of male pattern baldness that set in rather quickly a couple of years ago. He is a good looking dude and would do very well outside of India, but according to him in a funny, self deprecating way, he was next to untouchable on the Indian dating scene. Pranav was a candidate on the Indian version of the bachelor a couple of years ago, and if he has any unwanted stalkerish inquiries from crazy fans of the show, he simply emails them the bald version if his picture and that takes care of the problem. It was almost too much to believe! He even went so far as getting a $2000USD "hair system" (read: toupee) from a U.S. company called Hair direct that imports Indian hair, configures them into a "system" then sends it back to India. Very funny, but sad in a way. We recommended that Pranav come to Canada if he ever got lonely :-)

We stopped at the Banganga Watertank - a little oasis of quiet in the middle of the city. Pranav wanted a chance to explain the legend behind this little miraclulous water reservoir, but more importantly find a quiet place to explain and discuss the caste system in India.

I'd heard a bit about the social classification system that was created thousands of years ago, but it never really stuck: How did it work? Why was it still relevant since it was abolished by the Brits a hundred years ago? Who is in which caste? Inquiring minds want to know!

Pranav gave the clearest explanation of the caste system that I have ever heard or read, and then topped it off with an open example of how it affects him, so I will try and summarize. Basically, you can think of the caste system like parts of the human body. The head is used for thinking and teaching - this is the highest caste called the Brahmins and these were teachers, scholars, priests and intellectuals. The arms are used for ruling and enforcement, so the Kshatriyas (silent K) were royalty, military, police and the like. The legs are the things that support society, therefore the Vaishyas were the bankers, money lenders, business people and traders. The feet are the foundation of society, without which nothing could stand: this is the Shudra caste that consisted of the farmers, fishermen and all the small business people that made up the "workforce" of society. There was also a fifth, unofficial caste that represented the bottom of the feet - these were known as Dalits or "untouchables". Dalits were the menial labourers of India - thought by other castes to be the "scum" of society. Today, there are 200 million Dalits in India.

So it was abolished, but it still weighs heavy in society. Why? How? By knowing the last name of a person, you immediately know what caste they are. It's as simple as that. Pranav was really open about himself. He's a very pious, religious guy who believes in karma and doing as much good as you can to balance the scales.... But there's something inside him that he hates and that is the immediate discrimination he applies to prospective girlfriends (thus prospective wives) who are of a lower caste. He can't justify it - this is a very Western thinking guy that has tons of western friends, experience and knowledge. But he can't fight what his family and society expects of him...he cannot think of marrying a woman of a lesser caste.

Pranav is a Brahmin, in fact he is at the top of the food chain of Brahmins (to complicate things, there are many sub-castes in each caste, but they're not overly relevant in the larger discussion). He said it would be very difficult for him to marry someone of a lesser cast - near impossible. He even gets questions from family members when he associates with other castes (he does not discriminate when it comes to his social network) or plays cricket with a guy from a lower caste.

We talked at length, and the girls peppered him with questions. He fired back, asking us similar hard questions.... "Tell me something, would you be totally open if your daughter brought a Muslim home to meet you?" - it made us stop and think... It's not like our society has not created its own level of prejudices too. It was a very open discussion and we were really happy that he could give of himself so much.

On the way to the Babulnath temple, one of the oldest and most important Hindu temples in Bombay, Pranav explained a lot about his Hindu faith - where it came from, what it was like growing up, the things he learned from his parents. It was very interesting. At the base level, Hinduism has a lot of core tenants of Buddhism - the love yourself and others and karma concepts in general.

We made our way up the steps of a seemingly nondescript cobbled path, which opened up to a beautifully carved temple. We removed our shoes and accompanied Pranav inside and watched as he prayed. We laid our flowers on the Shiva Lingum (I heard Robin chuckle, predictably. You'll have to google if you forget why), then quietly walked around the temple. It was another serene oasis in what is otherwise a noisy, bustling city.

On the way down, we bought some grass to feed to the cows, but based on how busy the temple was and how much grass was sitting there, these cows were very well fed already.

We've seen a ton of Ganesh statues and temporary shrines set up throughout the city. Apparently, we are smack dab in the middle of the ten day Ganesh Chaturthi festival that goes on just about everywhere. It means there are some really big, impressive statues of Ganesh being dragged around or set up. This one looked smack dab in the middle of the Himalayas...

We did a quick stop near one of the major train station hubs of the city to check out the Dabbawalas. In case you hadn't heard, the famous lunchbox distribution system of Bombay has been studied by Harvard and FedEx among many others, to find out just how the system works. Here it is in a nutshell:

- Man goes to work (Me man... Me go to work...)

- Wife begins cooking lunch. Puts cooked lunch, snacks and drinks in a tiffin with a lunch bag. Leaves outside door by 10:30am

- Local Dabawalla picks lunch up and brings to nearby train station

- Train Dabbawallas group everything together on trains to bring to the city

- Offloader Dabbawallas take the lunch boxes from the train to a central depot (where we saw them)

- Lunches are sorted and Dabbawallas bring the boxes to the man's office.

- After lunch, the whole process is reversed and the empty lunch beats the man home

What's incredible with this system is that it is six sigma rated, meaning they make LESS than one error in six million deliveries. In fact, there's information out there that says they make far less than one in six million errors. Very cool. A 2014 movie called Lunchbox dramatized the system with a love story flair and it was quite well received.

Pranav said we were lucky - in high season there would be over a thousand tourists at this little corner staring at the Dabbawalas. Today, it was just us.

It was lunch time. We headed to Khau Galli which is known for its street food. We'd never tried street food in India per se, as you always have to be careful here, but Pranav assured us he'd never had a client have a problem with the food there. It was all very good - we started with Sev Puri, followed it with Pav Bhaji which was fantastic and filling, then overstuffed ourselves with paneer Frankies - a kind of Indian version of "hot dogs" which are really roti pastry wraps stuffed with various toppings. So good, and so nice to try a different slice of Indian food. Robin in particular was salivating over her orange noodle-filled Frankie.....

What would reflect the everyday Indian experience in Mumbai more than to ride a commuter train? That was our next task. Pranav bought the 5 ruppee tickets (10 cents!) for a quick, four station ride out to a different neighbourhood. It was nice to ride during the early afternoon (we'd already checked "getting packed into a commuter train" off the list in Tokyo) as Pranav explained that there are an average of 9 deaths per day on the Mumbai train system! Nine - every - day! I could practically hear Beth's heart rate elevate as Pranav declared that...... Moving on then!

We disembarked in a nice little middle class neighbourhood and went through one of the nicer organized markets we'd seen in our travels. Everything seemed so plentiful and completely topped up at all times. For some reason, we didn't expect a market to look so clean and organized - it didn't jibe with the chaos of the city.

One more Ganesha for the books...

Pranav got us a couple of beers so I suffered through one on the ride to our next destination. The king of good times indeed.... :-)

A relatively new attraction in Mumbai is the billion dollar house named Antillia. It was built by a huge dick (though given the size of the building, there's no way that term could be anatomically correct) named Mukash Ambani. There are 600 staff that run the house built for five people that towers over a middle class apartment building which is right next to a large slum. I wonder what the people of the slum think of this little dick.

Our last stop of the tour with Pranav was a visit to the little Portuguese neighbourhood called Khotachiwadi. The area was a cute little holdover that is protected as a heritage site so no assholes build billion dollar houses there.... We covered a few more fun topics, in particular dating websites. In India, Pranav told us that Western hookup sites like Tinder (Brian, Steve.... ask Nana what this is, she's quite hip) are really just friend meeting sites in India. The only "dating" sites in reality are matrimonial websites like Shaadi (slim Shaadi...) where you can search on many different attributes, including religion, height, salary, caste and hair (or no hair)!

We had an amazing day with Pranav.... truly amazing. We all learned so much and our brains were absolutely full of information he'd taught us. What a fantastic guy - it was a pleasure to spend time with someone who had so passionately found his true calling in life.

We wandered around the Colaba flea market area, then headed over to Mumbai's busiest tourist site, the Gateway of India which is "the" building that symbolizes Mumbai and its history.

The Gateway was built in 1924 to commemorate the landing of King George V and Queen Mary when they visited India in 1911. Ironically, when the Indians were vanquished and left India, the last solider also passed through this gate on his way home. Speaking of the way home, with brains full and energy close to empty for the girls, it was time to head back to the hotel. We hopped in a cab, hopped out when he refused to use the meter, and hopped in a cab and headed "home".