Wing to Wing

Nina Simone sings sweet smoky songs as I write. It is my fifth day in Mumbai, city of haze and vigor. The sun appears each morning just before seven. You can see the sunrise from the apartment window, but you can’t see the sun rise. There is a cheese cloth of sooty air that prevents us from ever really seeing a clear delineation between light source and atmosphere. It isn’t my first time in this frenetic, aggressive, sprawling place. But it is the first time I will call it home, and it differs starkly from what I truly think of as home—a farm in Texas. Mumbai is an empire with no end; a grand, messy coop of squawking birds packed together wing to wing, feathers flying, beaks avoiding other beaks—pecks and pointed attacks are exchanged—it’s unavoidable.

The morning began with a run on Bandstand, a boardwalk by the ocean, during which my handsome host, Kanu, decided that on future runs I should wear pants. The baggy shorts I chose are not baggy enough or long enough for eyes unaccustomed to seeing pale knees and thighs.

An hour later Neerag, the house masseuse has me groaning on the floor, as he aggressively rubs me down with olive oil from a canister in the kitchen. He’s rough but marinates me fully. My stomach and heels and knees—parts that other masseuses neglect—are thoroughly pushed and prodded. When he gets to my face he rubs his palms together with intensity and places them on my eyes. Squeezing my brows with oily fingers, he knits them together and up, releasing them from the clutch of my facial muscles. Strong flat thumbs iron out the wrinkles on my forehead. Poor man's botox.

Later on a girlfriend, Nicole, comes over. The hair at the nape of my neck is still heavy with olive oil. I shampooed three times, and still the oil asserts itself. She advises me to have Neerag use coconut oil next time on my hair. Olive oil for the body, but switch to coconut for the hair. The things you learn in India.

Talk in Mumbai is about the bracing cold. It’s 70 degrees Fahrenheit. People are sick with fever and pneumonia, coughs and colds. Babies are swathed in thick wooly onesies that have furry hoods with pointed bear ears. This is due to climate change, Mumbaikers resound. I find it rather nice. The evenings are pleasingly breezy, and the days are warm but not too much so.

Nicole, Kanu and I leave the apartment for a barbeque and I find myself telling a story about one of the many child beggars I came across the day before. When you pull up to busy intersections here, children no more than 4 or 5 years old approach the car and beseech its passengers for rupees. My general stance is nonresponse. These children work on behalf of parents or pimps who are capitalizing on their runny noses and grubby faces in order to make a buck. An article confirmed as much in today’s paper: four thirty-something gangsters have been kidnapping several children on their walk to school each morning for the past six months. They force the children to beg on street corners which brings in a tidy sum of 300-400 rupees a day ($8-10 US) per child. Hence, I feel justified in ignoring the precious children who ask for rupees at my car door.

Except for yesterday. A little boy came up to my window carrying an 8 or 9 month old baby who was bawling. Sitting in my air-conditioned, chauffeured car, I imagined what children their age would have been doing had they been cast a different lot: perhaps living with a nice family in Brooklyn instead of employed at this hellish intersection in Mumbai. The baby might have been pushed about in an industrial-sized, off-road-enabled stroller and the older one might have been enrolled in piano lessons and chess.

I don’t give money, but I do give food—which can be consumed directly by the child, whereas rupees must be given to the pimp. I handed the older boy some biscuits leftover from my lunch, Parle-Gs—my favorite. He took them without thanks and I rolled the window back up. But he continued to stand at the side of the car staring at me. I tried to avoid his eyes by looking straight ahead, but I foundered and turned to see him motioning thumb to mouth: he’s thirsty. He made sad eyes, like a mime’s—an expression that made it hard to tell whether it was part of his routine, or caused by the hopelessness of his life. I remembered my unopened Sprite nestled in a plastic bag on the seat. I lifted it up for him to see: want a Sprite? A hopeful nod followed. Rolling down the window again, I watched him as he took the full bottle of Sprite with relish. “Thank you Madam,” he said quickly, meaning it. A smile radiated from his face. Instead of moving on to the next car, he leaned back against the guard rail, satisfied, cradling the baby on one hip and the Sprite on the other. He smiled at me again and nodded, appreciating his win. Today, he would indeed Obey his Thirst.

I told this story to our friends in the car on the way to the barbeque. We all have our own warm stories to share about the connections made with strangers here. It’s why Mumbai is loved despite the pollution (equivalent to smoking 2 ½ packs of cigarettes a day), the noise (my cabdriver’s horn malfunctioned yesterday and started a continuous long hooooonk; I didn’t notice for at least a minute because of the cacophony of horns and people around us), and the traffic (combine New York, LA and Hong Kong and all the people in Slovenia, then destroy the roads and add enthusiastic drivers and you have one hot mess).

The barbeque is hosted by Malini whose studio apartment looks out at the Haji Ali, a stunning mosque and dorgah (tomb) basking in the middle of the bay. It must be one of the best views in the whole city—the Haji Ali is one of the central landmarks here. You have to pass it every time you drive from north to south or vice versa in Mumbai. Because of her isolated location out in the water, the mosque is looked upon with envy by nearly everyone, Muslim and non: what space and solitude she has (!) in a city that, at her densest, has 1 million people per square kilometer.

We spend the afternoon threading squares of paneer, creamy soft white cheese, and bell peppers, onions and zucchini onto wooden sticks for grilling. As the sun sets we begin a game of jenga. The atmosphere is warm—friends and alcohol are plentiful. I could be anywhere—a backyard in Virginia, a balcony in Manhattan, our farm in Texas. But I am in India. Mumbai. Home? Home. For now.