Ganpati Bappa Moriya!

How can I even begin to describe the crazy weekend adventure that was Mumbai? As usual, I'm going to try to relate the colors, sounds, smells and feelings that collectively made one small weekend trip into the memory of a lifetime.

The adventure started with a 16 hour train ride from Hyderabad to Mumbai. The ride was fairly comfortable, considering the amenities: a squat toilet (just a hole straight down to the tracks), and 6 bunk beds stacked right on top of each other, with no padding, pillows, or blankets. We were woken up at around 6 am with the ceaseless cries of the chai-wallas: "chaiiii, coffeeeee, chaiiii" and "paanniiii" (water).

We got to Mumbai around 1 pm on Friday. The rest of the day was fairly uneventful--the 6 of us broke into two groups, and Cecilia and I headed for Chowpatty Beach, desperate to see the ocean. We found our way there on the suburban train, riding in the ladies only car where everyone gawked at us but were still somehow very friendly and helpful. Chowpatty beach was shocking...everyone we talked to said it was much cleaner than it had ever been, but all we saw was a blanket of plastic bags and styrofoam covering the sand, as shown below...come ON
India!! Get it together! We talked about how frustrated we were by the pollution for a while, but finally managed to relax and watch a beautiful sunset over the Indian Ocean while sipping on a bottle of Indian rose wine.

We spent Saturday morning exploring the cave carvings on Elephanta Island. They were amazing, but the experience was negatively affected by an attack staged by a local gang of monkeys, who came leaping out of the jungle, yanked a diet coke out of Cecilia's hand, and proceeded to drink it right in front of her while the rest of the monkey gang hissed in a circle around us. Terrifying!

In the afternoon, we took the suburban train to see Dobi Ghat, an enormous human-powered washing machine. It was incredible--thousands of men and women manage to wash and dry thousands and thousands of garments every day using minimal electricity. Although we felt awkward, we took a tour from a young man and actually got to get up close and personal with the dobis (washer-people):
After our "tour," we decided to wander around and see if we could find the famous "floating" mosque. We didn't get very far until we heard the sound of drums...and of course we were drawn like moths to light. What we discovered was a procession of about 20 young Indian men and little children banging on drums, dancing, throwing pink powder in the air, and carrying a veiled statue of Ganesh down the side of the road. As soon as the procession noticed us watching by the side of the road, they all eagerly motioned for us to join in. I leaped over the fence first, got smeared in the face with pink powder, and was initiated. All my friends eventually climbed over too, and we followed them about half a mile down the road, dancing and shouting and throwing powder everywhere. After we left the procession, covered in pink powder from head to toe and wearing neon orange headbands, we made instant friends with everyone in the street. They seemed to be ecstatic at our participation in their festival, and everyone shouted "ganpati bappa moriya!" (something like "long life ganesh!") and cheered as we walked by. We made the decision not to go to the mosque, because as soon as we got closer to the Muslim quarter of the city, the smiling and cheering stopped and we just felt ridiculous covered in pink...

The next day we participated in more Ganesh festival activities, thanks to Chaya, one of the CIEE students who has a lot of family in Mumbai. She took us to her family's celebration, which was held at an enormous event hall that held over a thousand people as well as a 30 foot tall Ganesh statue decked out with real gold and silver. We were invited to eat, which meant we all lined up, sitting cross-legged on the floor, and were given a banana leaf as a plate. We were served rice, daal, mango pickle, lentils, and delicious rice pudding, all without utensils. I haven't quite mastered eating with my hands yet, but all the little kids around me thought I looked pretty hilarious making an attempt. After we ate, we all stood up, and all the half-naked men who had been sacrificing coconuts all morning (I think they might have been holy men of some sort...) layed down and proceeded to roll over all the banana leaves still covered in the remnants of our meal! It was insane! I kept asking people why they were doing that, and the least confusing answer I received was something like "they were making an offering to god." We also saw people sitting on one side of a gigantic scale, while priests put their weight in rice or sugar or coconuts on the other side, so they could offer their weight to god. It was all very ritualistic...and void of pink powder, which I was happy about because my skin is still dyed pink.

If you're interested in the Ganesh festival, which just started this weekend, you should definitely look it up online. I would write more but this post is enormous already. There's so much more to say, but it will have to remain in my memory for now...there at least is a little glimpse of what a chaotic and beautiful place this is. Namaste!