More Mumbai- a gentler side of town (and wealthier)

OK, another day, another entry. I have about two hours til my train takes off for Jaipur, located in a state called Rajasthan, in western India between Delhi and the Pakistani border. This is supposed to be an amazing, and for many iconic (camels, deserts, castles) place, and also is supposed to be heavy on the tourist trail. So I am steeling myself, and also getting excited.
Today I saw another side of Mumbai. I was over on the West side of town, Banganga Tank, Malabar Hill (where most of the old wealth Parsi families live - and still feed their dead to the vultures in high towers), a temple to Lakshmi, and a beautiful mosque on an island off the coast reached by a causeway that sinks during low tide.

Banganga tank is in a very quiet part of town. I don't know if I've talked about tanks or not. Basically religious bathing tanks with steps coming up from a big pool in the center. Most of them I've seen are too dirty to actually bathe in, but for one in Varkala. But there are still lots of things that happen around them. This one had laundry, cricket, marbles, kids playing with tops, and was ringed by about thirteen small temples. All the streets were very quiet from vehicle traffic, though they were loaded with people: pilgrims, kids, etc. In myth it is significant because it is where lord Ram shot an arrow into the earth (the pole in the center is this arrow). And, oh yeah, the arrow marks it as the center of the earth too (sometimes I forget these details).

Then from there I went up to the Lakshmi Temple (called Mahalaxmi here). Lakshmi is the consort of Vishnu I believe, and is the goddess of wealth. Often she is depicted with a stream of coins or gold coming out of one of her hands. Fittingly for Mumbai, she has a very nice and fancy coastal temple here. This one had tons of people, giving puja baskets (see here a "puja store") after waiting in long lines to get inside (it looked like the line for the matterhorn at disneyland, turning back and forth, but everyone had baskets of flowers). Then you can walk down a set of stairs to a little courtyard with two more shrines and a wrought iron fence that has waves crashing on rocks a few feet below it. The amount of people visiting it was staggering. Until I went to the place next door.

The Haji Ali Mosque is built about 200 meters out from the shore on an island. This place was packed! At high tide it sits out there, floating, as if completely isolated. Then, at low tide, a causeway appears and you can walk out to it. And boy do people do so. It's packed. The whole causeway, the mosque, the shrine inside to Haji Ali. Apparently Haji Ali is a muslim saint who died during the Haj and his coffin was put out to sea. It floated to this spot. So a Mosque was built. The tradition is to walk out the causeway and give to beggars lining the way. Alot of beggars. Or, if you are wily like me, you can go to the yummy food stall inside the mosque courtyard (I had yummy snacks in both the Lakshmi temple and the Haji Ali mosque, but the picture is from the mosque) and buy a few meal tickets to give to people on the way out. So I did that, looking for the ones that had kids to take care of. It was quite the gauntlet. One little girl wanted me to give her money and I had already given a bunch out and was out. She followed me for awhile and finally slapped my arm in frustration before walking off to try someone else. Oh well. But inside it was quite a lively place. Musicians (I love the music I've heard in Muslim places - beautiful call and response with percussion and other instruments). Security was more evident than at the temple, but not much more. To get into both you need to pass a metal detector and a bag check. But the mosque has two such stops. Mumbai has seen it's share of anti-muslim violence and retribution in the past, though in general it seems that the two cultures (like most everywhere else in India) are pretty enmeshed and difficult to tangle out.

Ialso went to the mahalaxmi dhoba (washing) ghats. Here most of the laundry on Mumbai comes that is washed by hand. It's a village in a city, devoted to hand washing clothes. Quite a sight.

So, tonight I get out of one big city and head off to another, Jaipur. I'm curious how it'll be up there. It will be cooler I know, but I'm quite ready for that. Mumbai has had record low temperatures which I have enjoyed immensely.

No movie last night, I went to my cell (see picture) and read the Namesake for three hours. I'm going to need to buy another book for my long train trip tonight. I have my eye on a copy of "The Kite Runner" at a shop outside the train station for 100 R. Maybe I can bargain him down a bit..

Just an interesting anecdote on Indian politics. Three days ago in Nagpur (I'm pretty sure that this is an industrial city in east Maharasthra), during a political rally, a member of congress was mobbed by the crowd and killed using sticks and stones. Can you imagine this happening in American politics? Now in all fairness I have to say that Indian politics is in a strange place right now. You have the fairly conservative BJP which is a bit weird in and of itself, but in poorer and more rural states lots of members of congress (BJP or no)actually are gangsters. Something like 25% of congress members at this time have criminal charges pending. The crowd in this case was linking this member of congress to some murders earlier in the year. Yikes. It's just a startling thing to be on the headlines of your morning paper.

Also, last night I went on a meat lover's paradise dinner outing. I went to Bidemaya Seekh Barbecue. Whew! This is street food, but very yummy, and so popular with the locals that they took over an across the street eating hall. Food comes really fast with lots of sauce and garnish, and is very heavily meat and roti oriented. Very yummy. I had two tikka rolls (chicken tikka wrapped in a roti like a burrito, and was so happy that I got more roti and a chicken murgha, which is a kind of thick dipping sauce. Mmmmm.