After five years living and working in Manhattan I decided to move to Mumbai for love of a country--India--and perhaps, although this cannot be confirmed, because I had been charmed by a certain young man. I traded one island for another; but if you want to get technical, Mumbai is actually seven islands lumped into one, which seems like a pretty good exchange. I came for something new. I came out of a sense of adventure and hope. And I came because it does wonders for my international street cred.
I did not come because of Mumbai. Mumbai is congested with men wearing high waisted pants and women with flowing saris, and way too many naked children. Mumbai is hazy with pollution, so much so that you can rarely tell the sun apart from the sky. Mumbai is glaring bureaucracy with lengthy, red wind-whipped ribbons of tape. But, Mumbai is where the action is, whether I like it or not.
What began as an ambitious experiment landed me in a job that has cut my pay by nearly 70%, and left me with comparatively high rent, a brutal commute, and a 6-day work week. Turns out street cred is hard to come by.
For all of my fondness for India, it is a place that begs to be hated. Walking up the stairs at the Foreign Registration Office, while looking up at the Do Not Spit sign on the wall, I was groped by a passing teen. My reflexive punch was laughable and was not even acknowledged with a backwards glance. Later on as I applied to get a cell phone, I barely concealed my derision at having to supply my father's/husband's name for phone activation. Really? On the way to work on my second day, my taxi cab's front hood collapsed on the highway. He asked for payment immediately, without offering to fetch me another vehicle. These things--logistics, transport, patriarchy, paperwork--make you want to pack your bags and go back to a land where you can order an avocado online and walk down the street in high heels without a thought.
But there is a reason I need to be here now. India, in her current state, stands on a precipice. In a matter of years, she risks being completely overrun by Western ideas and developments. In Mumbai, you can already buy a bottled Starbucks Frappuccino in the grocery store, if you know where to go. You can stay at the Marriot if you like. And if you cross the street from that Marriot, you can pop into the air conditioned Clarks Shoe Store. Where am I, again? When did India turn into London?
Some would call these developments progress. To me, most of them feel like the watering down of a pure and beautiful culture.
Of course, not all things have changed. People still use highway medians as open-air clothes dryers, and a man still brings a basket of vegetables to your door for daily produce shopping. But these parochial habits are fading fast. With each passing day, India changes and loses her charm, and her Indianess. That's the reason I came here.
The entries before this--from my travels in India in 2005--help to encompass why I love India, and also help to capture, in a small way, the things I loved about her then. I feel that this place has changed even in the three years I've been gone. Which is why I must be here now--to experience the last of India Untouched--or maybe it's more accurate to say, India Touched by Only Some, but Not All. Welcome to India Revisited.
If you wanted Paris, you should have gone to France!
ReplyDeleteIndia is a developing country. If it's becoming Western, it's mostly because of white people like you falling in love with Bikram Yoga and then jetting off to the ashram or to save the poor people. They're poor in the first place because, again, white people came and colonized it, sending all the revenue from overexploiting India's rich natural resources and rural poor back to Britain.
Your posts on Calcutta were particularly bigoted. You call Indian beggars "leaches" and then, ignoring the fact that Bengal was the capital of India and the academic/cultural heart of South Asia for centuries (14th century on) assert that tourists, presumably white and superior such as yourself, have remade it into a cultural haven. "But, evidently, Calcutta has been whispering sweet nothings into progressive ears and appealing to the culturally minded. Those who haven’t been to Calcutta still think of it as India’s nightmare, a place better left alone. But others, part of some quiet word-of-mouth marketing campaign, have heard Calcutta’s call, and she is now a cultural Mecca—a city of poets, film makers, novelists, painters, etc."
You should be ashamed of yourself. Go read India's history and have some respect.
Dear Anonymous. Thanks for your feedback. But, you've got me all wrong. I am in this country for the fifth time in as many years because I love its culture and people. I am not a tourist--I am here working for an Indian company, contributing to the country's economy in a meaningful way--directly and indirectly. I apologize if anything I've written came across as bigoted. My writing is descriptive and meant to invoke a sensory response.
ReplyDeleteCalcutta is one of the cities I love most in India. Having been there numerous times--to visit friend's families, and to return to my favorite small-imprint bookstore--I have walked miles in the city and seen much. But, I have never made the argument that Westerners are the reason for Calcutta's cultural richness--on the contrary, Calcutta has a rich history of producing its own novelists (Tagore, for example), poets (Tasleem Nasreen, to name a more contemporary writer), and art-house cinema (Satyajit Ray). My point is that many tourists don't get to learn about that side of Calcutta because they've only ever seen the images that emerged during Mother Theresa's work. Those pictures--beamed around the world--made outsiders see Calcutta as the nightmare I described.
Thanks for reading.
the racist tone coursing through every word of your post serves to severly undermine any worthwhile argument you feebly tried to make regarding indian exploitation by the white man. the depth of putrid pugnacities that spew forth from the great unwashed in anonymous posts on the internet never ceases to amaze.
ReplyDeletenotwithstanding the sympathy one with any trace of humanity inevitably feels for those forced to supplicate, beggars are leaches, irrespectful of the country in which they live. and although one might posit that new york city is the academic/cultural heart of north america, one might also opine on the merits of another worthy locale, new orleans. to assert an opinion for one over the other is not by definition bigoted or uninformed, it's a point of view. unfortunately, you are entitled to yours as much as anyone.
lindsay should be commended for her efforts to shine a little light. no small feat.
cheers,
rh
great blog! especially love the pictures. i agree with ross, that first guy is crazy.
ReplyDeleteLindsay,
ReplyDeleteI admire you for putting yourself out there like this. Your compassion for people & appreciation for India are so obvious to all who know you! It's hard to see how you come across any other way but I hope you continue to post. It's a real treat to read! Miss you!!!