like to be on this email list, please let me know. No offense taken -
I know you all have busy lives. Also, if there is anyone who I am
missing, please send me their email address or forward this email to
them and tell them to reply.
Okay, now down to business. As a disclaimer, it's very hot and
crowded in this internet cafe right now so we'll see how long I can
last.
When I left you last I was in Jaipur after Vishal's wedding trying to
figure out what the hell I'd be doing next. Well, that afternoon I
ended up on an overnight train with Britter and Shannon to Mumbai
(Indian name) / Bombay (Portugese/British name). The train was a bit
cramped but nicely air conditioned and the bed was comfortable. In
Mumbai we stayed at Vishal's dad's sports club, a very nice facility
with badmitton, cricket, and other britishy sports - plus a swimming
pool where I was approached by an Indian after a short swim and asked
whether I was a professional swimmer.
Anyway, pride aside, I spent three days in Mumbai sightseeing - we
went to the tomb of Haji Ali which is connected to the mainland by a
concrete causeway covered in street vendors and beggars all of whom
have to get off quick when the tide comes up. We also went to the
Gateway of India, an Arc-de-Triumph sort of monument erected in honor
of the british royalty, and ironically the same point through which
the last biritsh troops passed in 1947.
From there we caught a ferry
to Elephanta island, where the native Hindu fisherman many hundreds of
years ago had carved a series of caves and statues into the volcanic
rock. I hired a young local guide there who taught me many
interesting things, the best of which was the origin of Ganesh's
elephant head.
Basically, Ganesh was the son of Shiva (the destroyer) and Parvati,
and one day Parvati was in the bathroom and told Ganesh to guard the
door, which he did. Well, along came Shiva and said "Out-of-my-way!"
and Ganesh said "No, Mommy's in there!" so Shiva naturally cut off his
son's head. Well, Mommy wasn't very pleased so she sent Ganesh into
the forest and told him to come back with the head of any animal, and
he came back with an elephant head and she fixed it on his neck.
The next day we walked around some Victorian style buildings in
downtown Bombay. The story of Bombay's pretty interesting, as it used
to be a series of seven islands that have since been merged into one
long peninsula by the use of thousands upon thousands of concrete
tetrapods chucked into the ocean. Anyway, Britter and Shannon left
shortly thereafter and I perused the Rough Guide for awhile and
decided to head for Matheran, a nearby hill station that has the
remarkable feature of having banned cars from its premises (quite a
difference from Bombay, although with just as much air pollution
unfortunately). Anyhow, Matheran is atop a plateau in the Western
Ghats - the surrounding countryside looks akin to the Colorado plateau
/ canyonlands area except there's more bottomland than topland and
there's moonsoon forest instead of desert, if that makes any sense. I
stayed at Hope Hall Hotel, a wonderful establishment run by a gracious
Christian lady and her long-haired punk-rocker close-lipped
big-bellied possibly-homicidal brother (no joke). There I tried to
sleep while Monkeys gambuled across my roof and stray dogs howled at
the moon. By day I walked around the plateau or chatted with
Europeans about various strange things including $20,000 music boxes
made during 4 months of winter in the Alps and how Gandhi was a
womanizer (more later, hopefully). I also read a lot of Salman
Rushdie's Midnight's Children which combined with the heat is why I'm
writing like this.
Anyway, I am now back in Bombay and tomorrow I catch a plane to Tamil
Nadu, where I will meet with Krishnammal and the rest of LAFTI, this
organization I'm volunteering for to help untouchables get land,
shelter, and an education. I think I'll be mostly teaching English.
My health is good and I am getting less lonely than before, although I
still eagerly await Kyle's arrival.
I've been thinking lots about how to help all these poverty-stricken
people I see around. The thing is sometimes I think I might do more
harm than good by introducing my idea of "progress" into their lives.
But there's a few people who really need help, and that's the ones
that've left their villages to come to Bombay to make money and have
ended up in a slum. I think I'm gonna give this guy I met today $15
to buy a box on which to polish shoes. He came from a town in Jaipur
to Bombay in order to make money to repay the loans he took out when
his father got cancer. I quizzed him a bunch on his history and what
he plans to do with the shoe-polish box - everything I could think of
- and I don't think it's a scam. So we'll see - I'm gonna tell him to
write me a postcard every month for a year to tell me about how his
shoe-polishing is going - and if he does it then I'll know I've helped
someone and if he doesn't then I'll know I got scammed.
God it's hot. What else? I don't know....I think that's the
highlights. Goodbye for now, good friends, I'll write you again in a
week.
-Josh
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