Fwd: Mumbai Calling Again

Greetings again ... well, that worked - 

So, to continue the story ... as I mentioned, Mumbai highrise seemed to stretch out into the haze from either end of the beach ... and we discovered that it is indeed a very big place ...

We set off in a hire care for centre city for the museum visit, the shalwar kameez fit & the Gujarati thali lunch.  We drove and we drove and we drove ... I don't know how long ... maybe two hours, maybe more.  The drive itself became the main event of the day.  To be sure the traffic was slow in places, but there just is a lot of Mumbai to get through.  For those of you who have visited India once or more before, bear with me ... this was my first view.  Everywhere there were street signs advertising the most expensive products - jewellery, cars, clothing, banks, technology - cheek by jowl with people hanging out their washing on the median strip.  We passed a skyscraper we were told was the residence of just one family, that Mumbai has the most expensive real estate in the world now - all of this mixed in with shanty with shanty towns, rubbish and a fair swag of pretty undermaintained buildings.  Somehow, it seemed however, on the impressions of a single day, not so much a contradiction as symbiotic ... that maybe the wealth both feeds off the poor and the poor are attracted and feed off it .. and probably that every poor street person has a vision that they could one day live in the skyscraper mansion - and maybe they can ... there is so much change in the air.

When finally arrived at "Kasaba", our fabric mecca for the day, the premises were small and the feeding frenzy was great ... so many wonderful natural fabrics, so many textile fanciers in our group, so little time, so little space .... it was almost ugly, but Leslie and I came way with reasonable booty and a package of ordered costumes still to arrive in the mail.   That will be interesting since no measurements were taken, at least from me!!

Carole Douglas, tour organiser, introduced me to staff at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya Museum (a name to conjour with!! - formerly Prince of Wales Museum) and we had interesting chat about shared issues with humidity, and a tour looking at recent innovations.  They had some great ideas for children's activities I will bring back with me.  

Lunch was our first introduction to the Gujarati thali, along with Dr Judy Frater, well known for her work in promoting Kachchhi textiles and textile workers.  The thali has some structural resemblance to Yum Cha in that it is made up of a platter of small vegetarian dishes, which seem to keep coming until the eater puts up the "Full" signs.  What was in it??  It was all delicious ... there was half a tomato encased in batter, deep fried with some savoury flavourings, small fritters, dal, little puffy breads, buttermilk, yoghurt, a light cumin flavoured soup, small dishes of other vegetable curries ... something like polenta, rice of course, flat breads.  You will see in the picture ... I couldn't just use the picture of Leslie because her platter seemed to have reduced very quickly!!

I also include a photo of our group at the airport, en route to Bhuj, where we are now - but that is another story.  And one of those cunning looking crows who seem to have replaced seagulls.  We also saw kites (of the avian kind) soaring above Mumbai while we were enjoying a roof top drink at the end of the day in city centre - to steel us for another brief costume frenzy, bazaar experiment (a bit daunting) and the long drive home ...  

Hopfully tomorrow, more from Bhuj, which is a whole other story.  Brash modern cheek by jowl with mediaevil ... biblical even.  Would love to post more pictures of fascinating people and fascinating costumes - but I've been doing a lot of internet skimming in preparation for this trip and have become very conscious of privacy issues  ... so I have to leave out one of the most interesting aspects, at least for me. I will stick to general shots unless people have specifically given me permission to post their picture.

More about Bhuj tomorrow and since I've got it past the teething stage, there should be some words from Leslie and maybe some of our other  companions.

Robyn