Big day in the city

We spent 8 hours today in Mumbai seeing in depth 2 very different parts of the city. In a sense, our 2 sets of experiences were symbolic of the very challenging socio-economic dichotomy that exists here.

The first half of the day was spent seeing some major points of interest to tourists - the Gateway to India (built to welcome King George V when he visited in the early 20th cent.), the Victoria Terminus, an amazing piece of Victorian architecture and the only world heritage site still in use (2.5 million people commute through this train station each workday!), the Prince of Wales Museum, the hanging gardens, etc. We also saw some fascinating sites, including the Tower of Silence, where the small (and dwindling) Zoroastrian community leaves its dead to be "disposed of" by predatory birds - we could only see the walls, not inside, thank goodness.

We also had a chance to tour a Jain temple - aesthetically gorgeous and spiritually fascinating. In the pictures you may see temple devotees wearing scarves over their mouths - this is to be sure no insects get in their mouths - not for their own safety, but so that the insects are protected. In Jainism they vow to do no harm, so are strict vegetarians and will not even eat root vegetables, as they believe those rots feed smaller organisms, and if we uproot them we are depriving another critter of food.

We had some interesting discussions of religion here - it is interwoven into the fabric of life at all levels, but there seems to be general respect for all religions. In politics, for example, that one embraces his religion is critical to getting elected ... but once in office one may not show favoritism towards his own group. An interesting twist on the church/state relationship.

Incidentally, only 2% of the Indian population is Christian - such an interesting concept for our kids coming from such a Christo-centric environment.

We saw some firsthand examples of Indian creativity and industry when we visited the area of the laundry men, called dhobis in Hindi. For mere cents they will come collect your laundry, do it all at their own pool in this area, dry it, iron it, fold it and return it. By all accounts it is done as well as you can get anywhere; I hope the males in the group were inspired and will come home with more pride in their abilities to tackle their own laundry! We also saw some dabbawallas - an incredible, extensive network of lunch-box deliverers. In short, for about $10 a month if I were a mom here I could pay the dabbawallas to come to my house, pick up the hot meal I cooked for my kids at school and my husband at work, and deliver it to them correctly and on time. The lunchboxes will pass through 4-6 hands in the network (house to the bike guy to the train guy to the next bike guy to your school - and he waits and collects the box to bring back to mom afterwards!) Though they have no formal education, their organizers have been studied by Wharton and Harvard Business School for their efficiency. Wow!!!

The last stop before lunch was Mani Bhavan, Mahatma Gandhi's residence when he was in Mumbai. It was a good education and all the students who had read Cry, the Beloved Country had some excellent context for the history of Gandhi's time in South Africa fighting apartheid.

After a fantastic lunch at a beautiful restaurant, we headed to Pratham, a non-profit dedicated to rescuing and educating child laborers. We learned about the groups work generally, and then visited a nearby children's shelter housing 44 rescued boys. As it is Saturday the boys were having structured play time, and they sang us some songs and then we had free time to play and talk to them. Most speak little English, so we used our guide Amita as a translator, and in the end resorted to pantomime and playing hand-slapping games to communicate. We also taught them to use our digital cameras ... and they took to it like fish to water!

On Monday we will go back to Pratham and work with some girls in their computer-aided learning center. Really inspiring!!

As educational as all this was our 10-minute walk from our cool, safe bus (driven by some sort of traffic wizard, from what we can see) through one of the most crowded areas of Mumbai. The traffic was otherworldly and we burned more calories avoiding motorcycles and squeezing through crowds than anything we could have cooked up in the gym. Apparently a crowd of men tried to pick Michael Walczak up and carry him over a puddle (for cash), and David Mallen rescued him. I missed that, but would pay money to see the replay. Ah well - there's always tomorrow!

PS Though we saw some rain today, we are not in the area of the bad flooding - not to worry!