Mumbai-India Day 1

At the end of my first day in India, I find myself to be in a state much like the country itself.

 Conflicted and contradictory...

It's not as though I expected to immediately fall in love with the country.  Mumbai has a reported population of over 20 million people.  I knew that necessarily meant there had to be significant issues.  

But I found I was simply unprepared for the breadth of the poverty in this incredible city.

                                                           (View from our hotel)

Right next door to a downtown golf course of such exclusivity that not only does it cost over $20,000 to join but also a personal invitation, there are rows upon rows of two and three level shanties that no person I know would willingly live in.

                                                              (Downtown Mumbai)

In the same city where you find a 7 story skyscraper with 3 helipads that, at over $1 billion, is the most expensive single family dwelling in the world, you will also find operating a city laundry service where the well to do get their laundry done for about 50 cents per piece.  This laundry is picked up at your home and returned normally within a week.  In that time, members of the "untouchable" caste wash the pieces by hand in pools of water, pounding and scraping the clothes clean with cakes of soap, not laundry detergent.  Then the clothes are spun dry by hand and hung from lines strung over the roofs of homes to dry.  When dry, they are hand ironed with coal fired irons, folded, and repackaged for delivery.  All this so that members of this bottom class can make enough to ensure a meager meal each day.

                                                       (The Dhobi public laundry)

Yes, there is much that is amazing in this city.  But there is also much that is sad.

I spent two hours today with a young man named Rajoo.  He is 25 years old and moved to Mumbai six years ago from Nepal to find work and a career.  But after six years, Rajoo still lives on the streets, and he earns what little he can by shining shoes of residents and visitors.  In fact, that is how we met.

                                                                  (My friend Rajoo)

I was taking some free time to walk around the city, just to take in more of its character.  Rajoo approached me and asked if he could shine my shoes.  When he realized my hiking shoes couldn't be shined, he chose to walk with me rather than part company.  For over an hour we walked the streets, Rajoo asking about me and my reasons for being in Mumbai while also pointing out to me spots of interest.  His knowledge of the city and it's buildings was impressive and welcome.

I learned that he left behind a wife and a son, neither of whom he has seen since he left to make a home for them.  He spoke of his difficulties finding a job while homeless, and the impossibility of finding a home without a job.  He talked almost dreamily of his desire to be able to buy a shoebox, which would, in his words, "change his life completely," including the ability to bring his family here.  But for a man who is lucky to make 400 rupees per day (about 8 US dollars), the prospects of earning the 3500 rupees necessary to buy this box are bleak.

                                          (The domed ceiling in Jain Temple, a Hindu temple)

He led me thru parts of town that probably should have scared me, and in the process gave me a clearer glimpse of what it means to be a have-not in a city as wealthy as Mumbai.  I very much wanted to be able to buy him his box and find out one day that he turned that box into a life for his family.  In the end, I settled for a picture of the two of us to remember him by, and handshake and Namaste of thanks for his company, and a couple 100 rupee notes from my pocket.

(Jain Temple)

(Me at the Tower of India, having been blessed by two different people.)

It was the great visionary Stan Lee who wrote, "With great power comes great responsibility."  He meant it for Peter Parker, your friendly, neighborhood Spider-Man.

But surely that is a message for those in charge.  Certainly for our leaders in the United States.  And, as I am learning now, also for those in power in places like Mumbai.

Namaste my friends.