09.04.07 Hare Krishna

Yesterday was Krishna’s birthday, so we had the day off! Work one, one day off. Not so bad. Hare Hare!

It rained in the morning, but it’s been doing that here. Look out the window and there’s sun. Look again and it’s a downpour. I managed to enjoy my morning, making sketches for the BlueHill Troupe’s production of Mame.
Thank Krishna for the internet! (it’s his birthday so he’s the god of choice today) Thanks to him even community theatre can outsource to India!

The sun came out in the afternoon and I decided to go for a walk. Google Maps gave me a couple of options and figured I wouldn’t get lost. I did have a moment of trepidation, so I took some of the money out of my wallet and braced myselkf to start wandering around. Heck, I'm not going to see much from my hotel room.

The air outside is warm and moist and wonderful. My toes in my flipflops were overjoyed to be off the cold wood and stone floors of my hotel and into the warm air. Out the door and past all the hotel porters lined up to the curb, returning each smile and good morning. Jeez what a gauntlet! I walked past the bomb-searching gaurds at the gate and out into India.

Turning right at the corner, the street curved through a collection of hotels: the Marriot, a Meridian, something called Blue. There were lots of people out, dodging puddles, autorickshaws motorcycles, taxis, and the like. Around the curve the road crumbled out, never finished. Damn Google.

There was a crowd of people at the end of the road, looking past a fence at something. So I figured I’d go see what it was.

The land slipped away quickly where the road petered out and on the side side. A drop of about 2 meters (look who’s talking in metric!) Below was a level field with a billboard stating something about a community athletic association. About 10m above the field was a wire strung between to poles. The wire had a clay pot with some flowers strung around it. There were some mud drenched boys gathered underneath the gourd.

I’d found one!

At breakfast that morning I’d read about this contest held in observance of the Krishna’s birthday. The paper complained that politicians were polluting the religious nature of it. That's familiar.

I had asked the desk man about where I could find a contest. He gave me a funny look and told me that they happen all over. Here it was not 200m from the hotel.

It’s possible this is just a Mumbai thing, but the pot, a “dahi handis”, is filled with curd (yogurt) and gee (clarified butter) and maybe money and candy, sort of like an Indian piñata. The boys (and sometimes girls) make a human pyramid in order to reach the pot. Their rivals, or their friends, or their bratty brothers throw buckets of water at them, making them slippery.

The field I was wathching was an expanse of mud from the rains. The 10 boys were covered with it. It made their hand and footholds precarious.

Now, these aren’t cheerleader pyramids (hands and knees). These are circular towers. The lower ring stands arms around each other grasping lats. The next ring squats on their shoulders and the next stands on the shoulders of the squatters. That’s about as far as these guys made it before someone got nervous or shifted, and the whole thing tumbled down.

The picture came from the internet, sorry. I haven't got a camera yet. I waited to get a cheap price in India!!

Next to the field, about another 6’ down began one of the shanty towns that stretch over acres of Mumbai. If you look on Google Earth or some satellite shot you’ll see these seemingly endless corrugated metal roofs. These are shanty towns that run right up to the neighboring property edges. Who owns them, what rent is paid, who lives there, I still don’t know.

From my vantage point I could see a little way into the shanty town. Not all the buildings were made from corrugated metal or plywood. Many were masonry buildings, one story and small but some had doors and windows. Right in front of me was a tiny general store. Pavers were spread in front of it (I wouldn’t say laid) probably due to the heavy traffic. There was an older woman in her clean sari walking down the path, and the men coming out were reasonably dressed.

I was a little fascinated and wanted to go explore, but much like in Boston, when my engineering school was on the other side of the housing projects from where I lived, I didn’t feel altogether comfortable walking through a neighborhood where I might not be welcome.

The boys going after the dahi were regrouping again after a third failed attempt, and I decide to continue my walk. There was a fetid smell coming from somewhere in the tangle at the end of the road and I needed some better air.

I went back to the main road and ended up skirting the shanty town. About then I realized I'd seen only one other 'european' since I left the hotel. Lesson 14: Folk who can afford not to walk, don't. No wonder I was attracting notice - here I thought it was my good looks.

I came across another open area where two more dahi were strung. There was a great crowd watching on the field, including a dozen girls in beautifully appointed saris standing on a little stone retaining wall under a tree, while the muddy boys below showed off for them.

I watched from across the street on a little rise with some other pedestrians. The little auto-rickshaws (photo right) pulled up and passengers craned their heads out to watch the sport.
A young guy pulled up on his motorcycle and watched for a while. He looked over at me and beeped his horn. When I realized he was signaling to me, he motioned. He was either asking if I wanted to move closer, or if I wanted to join in! I smiled and declined. My anthro professors at Macalester would have loved the invitation to participant observation.

Back at to the hotel and found that my keycard wasn’t working (another story). My pants and sandals were a little muddy, my shirt was soaked with sweat and I was anxious to clean up. The same clerk from this morning reprogrammed my key. He asked me if I had been out and found the celebration. I told him that I found a couple in the neighborhood, at which he smiled and shook his head.

I recognized the reaction from my own in NYC. Everytime a tourists would stand on Broadway and 43 and ask the way to Times Square.