Mumbai: First impressions
An airport, it’s inevitable to talk of an airport. Which is a bore, since an airport is a sanitized version of the outside, an island that purposely isolates itself from its surroundings and tends to become like any other, a uniformed space that could be found on the other side of the globe. When I worked in Mozambique and had to travel to Tete, inland, it was like landing in a friend’s backyard: the little plane with two propellers had left Maputo, stopped by Nacala or Beira to drop off and pick up more passengers, and made the final trembling descent to land between the green and yellow of the savanna and a white villa with four stripes of grass, which was the airport. We stepped out of the plane onto the dusty runway, undulating with heat, and walked through the grassy stripes with a few stunted trees. Pulling my three days suitcase, I would leave behind the passengers who were waiting for the cart with the hold luggage, the half dozen workers in threadbare uniforms that were always sleepy and would soon fall asleep again (it was the only flight of the day), and I was outside.
It wouldn’t be like at Delhi or Mumbai airport, it couldn’t be, if there’s still something to say about small provincial airports, which due to the distance and little use have yet to lose their originality, in an international airport of a large metropolis there’s no escape. I’m still not sure what I expected the first time I flew to India, three years ago. The planes would take off and land in the same way, there wouldn’t be a pilot sitting in lotus position in the cockpit, levitating the plane with the power of his mind, and on arrival, bronzed skinny men with rags wrapped around their waists running down the runway to catch the plane in a loop of rope and stop it by force of their arms, leaving us at the mercy of a mob of indigents crawling on the tarmac with their hands outstretched, interspersed with fakirs and bearded sages, the scent of misery and spiritual elevation seasoned with cinnamon and cardamom hanging in the air… By that time I had already traveled to four continents, had lived in Mozambique for a year, with presumption I thought I was free from prejudice. I knew enough to know that it would be an airport similar to the others and still I expected a shock (perhaps it would be a little more worn and dirtier, with pungent smells, lots of people, heat, a maze of incomprehensible signs…), a shock that was not beyond the excitement of the trip, it was a part of it, I wanted to be shaken up from the moment I landed. I had mentally prepared myself for nearly everything but that shake that didn’t come in the modern complex that dispatched millions of people with the aseptic efficiency of a European airport.
Now, three years later, I know exactly what I’ll find, and it’s Sara who sees everything for the first time. After a joyful hug, I help her put the backpack, she almost trips under the weight and we laugh like kids. The signs in English quickly direct us to the exit, and already she’s flooding me with questions that I don’t always know how to answer. Sara has traveled around too, and despite the familiarity of the glass walls, the high ceilings, the white light, the moving walkways, the cloying smell of perfume shops in the air-conditioned atmosphere, she soon shines with fascination seeing the colorful outfits that proliferate here, even on the advertising panels that entice us on the walls. Standing in front of the door, a couple of soldiers with machine guns hanging remind me that if we go out, they won’t let us back in. “Wait, Sadhna said to hire a taxi inside. Outside we have to haggle.” We find the counter with the destinations and prices unambiguously listed, I ask for a car without air conditioning to save a few rupees.
Outside, Sara happily breathes in the warm, heavy atmosphere. “How I missed the air of the tropics!” and there’s no irony in that remark. Behind the metal bars that separate the ones arriving from the ones waiting, between the men in white shirts holding sheets of paper with unknown names and the sea of black and yellow taxis that seem from another era, we see Sadhna, with a yellow kurta and the round cheeks lifted in an open smile we know so well. It’s still a mystery to me how to greet a woman in India, if we got close, there should be a warmer gesture to show it, but physical contact usualy generates strangeness, if not mistrust. With Sadhna I don’t know if the rules of our friendship in Europe still apply or if they have changed here. She dispels the doubts by embracing both of us.
Barely noticing the taxi driver, we climb into the backseat of an old Ambassador, yellow and black like the others. Sadhna wants to know how our flights went. We ask about her work, she’s finishing the doctoral thesis that occupied her for four years in Amsterdam, where we met her. Rahul, another friend from Amsterdam, asked us to call him as soon as we arrived, and Sadhna puts him on speakerphone for all to hear. In the middle place, Sara is holding the phone.
“Hey!” greets Rahul. “How was the trip?”
“Good!” says Sara, still very excited after the arrival. “And you? How are you? What have you been doing?”
“I was with my mother at our house in Jharkhand, working on my thesis. Now I’m in Mumbai for some job interviews.”
“I’m so happy to be here with you and Sadhna! We’re so lucky that you are both back in India, thank you again for having us, Sadhna!”
“Of course, no problem.”
“You’re lucky to stay with her” says Rahul, “everything is too expensive in Mumbai. Even I am staying illegally in my old campus. I’m sure you’ll be very comfortable with Sadhna.”
“I need to tell you that I live with my parents and my sister” warns Sadhna. “They’ll be around the house too, but you’ll have a room for yourselves.”
“Don’t forget to touch everyone’s feet as soon as you see them, it’s the Indian way of showing respect to your elders. But no need to touch the taxi driver’s feet hahaha!” Rahul laughs generously. He has a vast repertoire, the short and dry laughs, these, of medium length and slightly nervous, which round off the end of his jokes and invites us to join, and the loose, loud laughter that sometimes can even bring him to tears. Derisive, disingenuous laughs, never, they’re always without malice.
Sadhna laughs too. “Rahul… Then I’ll touch your feet next time I see you!”
“No, no, no, that’s not necessary! I’m not that old, my gray hair does not symbolize my age.”
“No one knows what your real hair color is, Rahul, it keeps changing like the seasons.”
“It’s an enigma, they’re still going to do PhDs about it” says Rahul.
“Anyway, we’re counting on you to teach us all the Indian customs” I say.
“Don’t worry, you’ll both go back as full-fledged Indians” says Rahul. “I hope you’re not too tired, I booked movie tickets for this afternoon, as part of your warm welcome.”
“What about the next few days?” asks Sara. “Are you busy or do you have time for horsing around?” Rahul learned the expression ‘horsing around’ in Amsterdam and it became his motto.
“I’ll make time, let’s go horsing around, hahaha!” A coughing fit interrupts his laugh.
Sara waits for the cough to calm down. “Are you alright, Rahul?”
“Yes, yes, it’s just an allergy.”
“Allergy to what?”
“Pollution. I was away for a long time, the fresh air of Amsterdam spoiled me. I miss our trips to the countryside. Doing the same in Mumbai would be like smoking two whole packs of cigarettes.” He laughs.
“There is something else I wanted to ask you” says Sadhna. “There is a festival called Navratri going on. We have music and dance events throughout the city at night. If you’re interested, we can go. You can dance with the others or just watch.”
Sara gets even more excited. “Yes, let’s go!”
“You too Rahul.”
“It sounds promising” replies Rahul. “Let’s watch the crowd. Watching the crowds in India is like bird or wildlife watching. Sara, you will be surprised to see that three quarters of humanity is in Mumbai. Let’s take pictures of the trash. And of the cows.”
Perpetual Motion is, a serial novel. Go to the Table of Contents to read previous posts.
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