THE BIG BALLOON INDICATOR

An American friend working in India emailed me today to say that she'd noticed the Big Balloon Men of Bombay have returned. These are the guys you see in the streets of Colaba near the Gateway of India and the now-shuttered Taj, slapping their wares and shouting "Big balloon!" Under normal circumstances it is almost touchingly ludicrous except that after one minute you want to either run away or stay and help them figure out a better business plan than getting adult foreign tourists to buy giant balloons. Today it would be a welcome sight. Anyway, since I'm not there but home in New York, I thought I'd put up some more pictures. In case you missed it, read Suketu Mehta's solid op-ed in the New York Times about this resilient city.

BOMBAY, BURNING

Watching the very sad and scary news from India. Shootings and bombings all over the city—a city which under normal circumstances exists in a state of permanent functional mayhem. I spent a month camped out at the Taj hotel around this time last year. It's now under siege, its old wing in flames, hostages taken—pure terror. It's as likely a target as any I guess, an iconic fortressed preserve in a city that has few identifiable landmarks. A report from someone at the scene described gunmen entering one of the hotel's restaurants to round people up. Gin and tonics are nearly twenty dollars a watery drink at the hotel bar. I've had my share. You drink them knowing that people are sleeping on the pavement outside—literally across the street from the little back exit, away from the grand entrance which opens up onto the Gate of India and its touts and milling crowds and the usual mess of costumed bellmen and comings and goings and waiting drivers. You sip the gin and tonics inside because it's quiet, thinking all the while: I don't know what to think. Easier to think once you're home, a million miles away. Tonight, from safe, holiday-cheery New York, I feel terrible fear for those inside the hotel and for those still in danger. And sadness for the rest whose lives will be damaged by this indirectly. Bombay is a compelling insanity and it gets under your skin.
(Above, a resident crow in the usually bucolic courtyard, Taj Mahal Palace, Bombay, 10.24.07)

FROM THE FILES: WHICH PASTA LANE?

Three random signs from Bombay. The no pet litter sign is part of a series about street cleanliness. Also forbidden: washing your car in public. No spitting is from the train station. I still can't figure out what the illustration is meant to represent. And 3rd Pasta Lane? Whatever it is, I love it. (India. 10/07)

Pavement Life

"Overbreathed" — grumpy V.S. Naipaul re: Bombay air. I am missing it I guess, even while I'm relieved to be home. Or not so much missing it as thinking about it a lot. Or belatedly processing it. Or something deep.




More Naipaul: "The main roads there are wide, wet-black and clean in the middle from traffic, earth-coloured at the edges where pavement life flows over on to the road, as it does even on a relaxed Sunday morning, before the true heat and glare, and before the traffic builds up and the hot air turns gritty from the brown smoke of the double decker busses; already a feeling of the crowd, of busy slender legs, of an immense human stirring behind the tattered commercial facades one sees and in the back streets doesn't see, people coming out into the open, seeking space." (India: A Wounded Civilization, 1977).

So long, Bombay

Leaving India later this morning. Sad to go. Been an amazing time. I'll post more pictures but now a little sleep. Next up: TANZANIA.

Short film about trying to cross the street.

Press the little arrow to play. Apologies to Wes Anderson.

He's not just the owner…

Happy halloween all.

No idea.

Any guesses?

Yes, and that too.

Talk about mudflaps, Bombay's got 'em

Today

Today I ate fried things from a street stall / watched kids play cricket on the street / saw a goat walking in a market and puppies eating trash by the side of a highway / went to a beach where kids rode in mini electric cars and an old woman pulled dozens of chicken feet from a bag full of chicken feet and fed them to wild dogs who love chicken feet / sunned myself next to the pool at the Taj / saw the body of a dead man on a stretcher covered with flowers carried past me down the street in a Hindu funeral procession headed to the crematorium (the dead man wore a white hat and an open-mouthed look of wonder) / stepped over an open sewer / was approached by a man asking me to be an extra in a Bollywood movie — his business card said: "Bollystars Casting (Specially Western People)" / played Xbox at a friend's apartment / looked away as an elderly couple urinated at the edge of a beautiful park / watched two men lathered up and shaved by barbers on the side of the street / saw a monkey / admired the gated palatial homes of Malabar Hill and the giant Art Deco banged-up jalopies of apartment buildings along Marine Drive / drank a can of iced coffee from a gas station convenience store / passed a sign that said "Special Bus Lane for Best Buses Only" and another that asked "Are You Ready For the Global Gujarati?" / ate squid koliwada and kerala prawns and butter nan and spongy neer dosa and drank Kingfisher beer.

That was today & I got a late start. And it was a Sunday.

Not the least intimidating vehicle in the world.

A few feet from the nicest hotel in Bombay. Unrelated: an ATM ate my bank card today and I found myself shouting at a bank official who asked for a xerox of my passport "I did not bring a photocopier to India!" Sometimes being right doesn't stop you from being an idiot.

Why a duck?

Had lunch the other day at TRISHNA, a Bombay seafood restaurant. On the wall was a copy of a New York Times story written by the late great Johnny Apple. He'd named the place one of his "10 restaurants outside the United States that would be worth boarding a plane to visit." I looked up the story online — turns out it was published exactly one year ago today. I'm a sucker for meaningless coincidences. I've been to 5 of his 10 (Las Lilas/Buenos Aires; Wilton's/London; Jean Georges/Shanghai; Don Alfonso/Amalfi Coast) and can't say I agree with them all but Trishna was really great—especially the fried bombay duck (above). It's locally caught, which is sort of terrifying & is a buttery whitefish & not a duck. My friend Mitchell Davis—possessor of vast Apple-esque food-knowledge and global swagger—told me to eat here, so thanks Mitchell.

More (INDIA)

India is the world capital of parentheses (they love em). Some signs and other Bombay scenes.




Hop-In.

Shalom Bombay: I've met Jews from Indiana but never India. One of the half dozen or so synagogues in the city. Built 1884. Very pretty blue.

Bombay Taxis (an appreciation)

& — a little unedited video of traffic fun: HERE.

Scenes from Old Delhi

The sun and the moon.


Parade (and military escort)


Fair Deal.


Hotel Taj (no relation).


Wires.


Relaxo.

More India

Went to dinner last night at this after-hours kebab stand. "We can eat on the car," AT said. I thought he meant in the car, but he meant on the car. You order; take a card with a number; a waiter with a corresponding number pinned to his shirt finds your car in the street, props up the hood with an upturned 7-Up bottle to make it level-ish, lays down some newspaper and plates and plates of grilled chicken legs, lamb skewers, roomali roti ("handkerchief roti", paper thin bread cooked almost instantly on a convex grill) and buttery, spicy soft goats' brains.


The nimble roti maker.


Mango juice on the car-top bar. Good w/ scrambled goat brain.


Electric cigarette lighter at a deli (or something like a deli). Flip the switch and the little metal coils eventually get glowingly hot.


Thumbs up for Thums Up soda.

INDIA

I've nearly hit the midway point of my month in wonderful, tiring, stinking, beautiful India. Time to post some pictures. Spent about a week looking for tigers and leopards at safari lodges in two national parks, Pench and Bandhavgarh. I'll put up some tiger video later. After that Delhi and a quick trip to Agra to see the Taj Mahal. Above: Churchgate station, Bombay.


View from a bicycle rickshaw in Old Delhi.


I wore a blue blazer when I went to the Pyramids in Cairo so I figured why not here? As you can tell my head is beginning to melt.


All Up. On the road, somewhere, near Jabalpur, I think.


The back of one of the "Goods Carriers" trucks that are everywhere here. The trucks are beautifully painted and always ready to crash into you from the back or mow you down in a head on collision. The ubiquitous "BLOW OK HORN" invitation is sort of unnecessary in a country where every single driver is at all times honking to announce his location or mood or intention, like the nonstop toot-toot-tooting of some agitated species of lunatic songbirds.


I love the taxis here. They're decrepit and exotically duded up.


Taxi detail: the exterior meter.


Kinder-gentler swastikas. Ancient Hindu symbol—still a little hard to get used to.


View of the Gate of India, from the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, Bombay.