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My last day in Mumbai was too short to plan an all-day excursion. The plane left at 6am but unfortunately the trains stop after about 1am. I asked my hotel manager and he told me a taxi was the only way to get to the airport on time, unless I wanted to take a train at midnight and spend 5 hours at the airport. I opted on booking a taxi which I paid with my hard-earned 500 rupees from the day before.
"This is my Bollywood money," I said when handing the hotel manager the 500 rupee billl.
He tilted his head in amusement. "Oh, you were in a Bollywood movie? Which one?"
"It's called Once Upon a Time in Mumbai."
The hotel manager thought for a bit, then looked at his companion. "I have not heard of this movie."
"It stars Ajay Devgan, " I said
"Oh yes, he is very famous actor!" he said while he and his companion tilted their heads enthusiastically.

Yalong and I met for lunch one last time. Once again we ate at Baghdadi's. The flip-over menu on the back wall was now in its pre-dinner position and the place was swarming with high school-aged children. So far we had only seen adults there.
As we came outside we were at a loss for something to do. I told Yalong I wanted to see a movie. He said he might come with me, but he wanted to find out if any trains were going to Calcutta today. He was supposed to board his flight from Calcutta in less than three days and wanted a chance to see more of the city. Together we walked to Churchgate station where the long-distance trains left. At the ticket booths Yalong found out the only train to Calcutta left at 4pm. He had just enough time to get his luggage from his hotel and walk back to Churchgate. We said goodbye and Yalong went back to Colaba.

I took the underground passage towards CST. I figured if there wasn't enough time to go to the national park or to see the Haji Ali Masjid, I'd at least like to see a Bollywood movie. There were several movie theatres around CST and I went to see what they offered. At the Sterling Cinema I studied the schedule. There were both Hollywood and Bollywood movies playing. Two women sitting on the stairs in front of the theatre asked me what I wanted to see. I told them I wanted to see a Hindi movie.
"Why Hindi?" one of them asked.
"Because I can see Hollywood movies at home, there's no point in seeing them here, " I said.
She looked at her watch. "You can still see the Three Idiots movie."
I had seen posters for that. It seemed like a teen comedy. The posters for another movie, called Ishqiya, appealed much more to me.
"No, too late. It has already started, " the other woman said.
"What about the movie called Ishqiya?" I asked them. "Do you know what that's about?"
"It's about... ". They struggled to find the words. "It takes place in rural area. The Three Idiots movie is in the city. The other one is about crime. I think more traumatic."
Ishqiya played at 4. It was now 3pm so I still had time to grab lunch before seeing the movie.
The man at the ticket office didn't believe me when I said I wanted a ticket to Ishqiya. "Sorry sir, no English movie," he said in a tone of voice that implied I had no business buying tickets to a movie in Hindi.
"I know, but I still want to see it."
"You want to see the Ishqiya movie?" he replied incredulously while bringing up the seat plan on his screen. He suggested me a seat and I went with it. After paying 150 rupees I was about to head off to dinner when a young man came up to me.
"Hello sir, which movie will you be seeing?" He looked too old to be in high school, yet his clothes resembled a high school uniform. His beard and short hair suggested he was a Muslim.
He introduced himself as Asim and it turned out he had tickets to the same showing of Ishqiya as I did. We had the usual chat about backgrounds and jobs. He described his job as being 'in business' without going into further detail.
I told him I was going for lunch.
"Okay, perhaps see you later," he waved me off.

Pondering my options for lunch I quickly discounted the local restaurants. To boot, the closest one I had eaten at was the Koh-i-noor, where the cashier tried to withhold my change and I only had twenty minutes to have lunch and then make it back to the cinema. I expected eating at a restaurant to take much longer than that. Fortunately there was a McDonalds down the road from the Sterling Cinema. I was kind of pining for some western food and didn't mind some fries with a copious amount of chili sauce (they should have that at European fast food restaurants).

Now just because it's a McDonalds doesn't mean it works the same way a McDonalds back home does. For starters there's the menu that has been fully adjusted to local customs and eating habits (no beef or pork in this case) and secondly the process of ordering and receiving your food is never the same either.
Upon entering it became clear things were a lot more organized here. People didn't queue up directly in front of the counter, but instead formed a single file queue marked by queuing posts. At the end of the queue an employee took your order which he ticked off on a notepad-size form. I went with the Maharaja Chicken Burger menu, ice tea without ice (you know what I mean) and a sundae. The man, I guess you could call him a human load balancer, ticked off my order then ripped the sheet from his notepad and handed it to me. Three servers stood behind the counter and customers were assigned to one in a round robin fashion. The order taker directed me to the first server, who asked for my order. He read the order out aloud while things were handed to him by three different staff members. He put them on the tray in front of him, then shoved it towards me and quickly said: "Enjoy your meal, sir," before turning his attention to the next customer. The whole process took no more than ten seconds, a sharp contrast to McDonalds in The Netherlands where I once had to wait fifteen minutes before my server realized she'd forgotten about me. I did get free ice cream out of that though.
At the sauce stand I helped myself to a maximum serving of chili sauce and took a seat on the outside terrace.

I was back at the cinema a few minutes before the movie started, but two armed guards prevented people from going up the stairs into the theatre until everyone had come out from the previous show. There was no obvious reason for having two men armed with submachine guns. Perhaps it was a security measure instated after the 2008 attacks.
Once the guards let everyone in, about two dozen people stormed upstairs. I waited out the rush. The theatre was mostly empty so there was absolutely no need to run for a good seat. The usher looked at my ticket and pointed me to my seat. On my way there I heard Asim call me. He picked a seat on an empty row at the front and invited me to sit next to him. "This way can explain you the movie," he said. I was glad too, because the movie wasn't subtitled.
The show started without the national anthem or any other moment of cultural reflection for which Indian movies are famous. The movie itself turned out to be a sort of caper comedy with a bit of action at the end. Several times something on screen had the audience kill themselves with laughter. Either Asim was not so good at explaining the jokes, or Indians are easily amused. But all-round it was a very entertaining movie. The soundtrack was certainly good.

Afterwards I had a conversation with Asim. He told me he was going to visit family in England soon.
"Can I ask you something," he inquired, "why are westerners always so introverted?"
I didn't have a good answer to that right away.
"I guess it's culture," I said. "Here in India life mostly takes place outside, on the street where people meet each other. In the west it takes place indoors and if you want to see your friends you have to call them up."
My explanation didn't seem to satisfy him but he didn't ask any further.
I told Asim I had to go back to my hotel to pack my luggage. He shook my hand enthusiastically and thankfully without squeezing too hard.

At the hotel I packed my backpack and made sure I would be able to leave at about 2pm when the taxi would pick me up. When packing was done it was nearing 7pm and I went outside for my final stroll through Mumbai.
I got some curry at a restaurant on Dr. DN Road. After that I walked towards the western seafront (near Churchgate) and along the way I bought some ice cream. In a music store I bought the soundtrack album to Ishqiya and a Panjabi dance album. Instead of going all the way to the coast I went past Mumbai University to the large maidan just beyond it. The area was abuzz with activity in the humid evening heat. Street vendors sold all sorts of trinkets, souvenirs and food along the dusty dirt path that crossed the maidan. I climbed over the low fence and sat down on the grass. Sitting there I ate my ice cream while contemplating the things I'd done in the city. It was a farewell ritual, although I might return to Mumbai some day.

I went back to the hotel to get about four hours of sleep. I woke up at 1:45 in the morning, quickly washed myself, brushed my teeth, put my clothes on and quietly made my way downstairs with all my gear on.
At the foot of the stairs to the street a dark silhouette watched me come down.
"Hello sir, you ordered a taxi?" the man asked. I confirmed and he relayed my answer to the taxi driver.

The main roads were completely empty at this hour, save for the occasional push cart that was brusquely evaded by the driver. It wasn't one of the old taxis you see so many of in India, but a relatively new Japanese model which seems to be slowly replacing the old models. There seemed to be something wrong with the front axle which made the car quite unstable. I hoped it wouldn't break down before we reached the airport.
The smog was even more apparent during the night. The air was thick everywhere and gave the street lights a hazy glow. During the hour it took to get to the airport all of Mumbai's faces were visible. We passed business districts, suburbs, common residential areas and slums. A lot of the road was elevated causeway which offered a good view of all these areas.
During the ride the realization sank in that I was really about to leave. Even though I'd only been here a week I still got the same melancholy feeling I got when I flew out of Bangkok two years ago. Indeed Mumbai had an atmosphere very similar to Bangkok. Through all the smog, rubbish and poverty shines this undeniable charm that manages to captivate you.

I arrived at the airport with plenty of time left. My small backpack still had a full 1 liter bottle of water and a 1L bottle of self-mixed mango crush in it. It was a waste to throw them away at the security checkpoint so I finished both the bottles before queuing up for the security check.
An Indian soldier who patrolled along the security checkpoint, rifle hung over his shoulder, stared at me as if he suspected me of something. Then I realized I was wearing the t-shirt I had bought that had a joke in Hindi on it. The soldier displayed a brief sign of amusement before quickly returning to his authoritatively serious grimace.

On the plane I sat next to Swadha. She lived in Mumbai where she had a well-paying job in IT, but now she went to join her husband in the Netherlands. Her husband had been working and living there for several years and she too was hoping to find a job.
The climate gradually changed the closer we came to Europe. Starting over Germany, the ground everywhere was covered in snow. Things were no different in the Netherlands. The captain announced that ground temperature in Amsterdam was -10c. Everyone started putting on sweaters.
The freezing cold was a harsh departure from the 30 degrees in Mumbai. Fortunately Stephan was there waiting for me. He brought my winter coat with him, which I dearly appreciated.

I got up early, showered, put on my clothes, had a quick breakfast at Manglore Naaz, then I headed off to Colaba. I waited for a while at the far corner of the street where the Salvation Army hostel was located, like Imran had told me, but nobody showed up. The street was deserted except for an occasional passerby, and at about 8.15 I walked back to the Salvation Army. A British couple stood there waiting and I asked them if they too were waiting for Imran. They were, except he had told them to wait at the Salvation Army hostel instead.
Some Indians gathered around us, curious as to what we were up to. I told them we were waiting for our pickup to Bollywood and showed them Imran's card. One of the men took the card from me without asking and said: "I call for you," while reaching for his cell phone. I could hear Imran responding to the phone call. The two men conversed in Hindi and after the phone call was over, the helpful Indian reported: "He send someone to pick you up."
After a few minutes, a trendy looking Indian man appeared in a shiny black Mazda with tinted windows. The three of us (me and the British couple) got in and were driven to another spot at high speed. Though it was still early and traffic had yet to get started, the driver nearly hit a few cyclists and pedestrians who were calmly crossing the road, not expecting someone to appear behind them at 70 km/h. The horn signal called them to attention just in time.

We arrived at a street near the high court, on the other side of Mahatma Ghandi Rd. Imran had managed to drum up about 40 to 50 white people and was arranging them in groups. It quickly became clear that anything he had told me was only tentatively true.
"You guys, and you guys," he said while pointing at a group of mostly women, " the ladies please stand over here. You can go now with my assistants." As the group disappeared around the corner, Imran turned to the leftover group, mostly consisting of men and couples. "You guys, please come back at 10am then we meet at Metro Shopping Centre. Okay? Can we do this?"
We agreed but weren't too thrilled about knowing we could've stayed in bed for another two hours had we known.

I walked around Colaba for a bit and bought some drinks and a city guide, to replace my lost copy of the Lonely Planet. Ten minutes early I arrived at the Metro Shopping Centre and found Imran and his assistant already there. While we were waiting for others to show up, I asked Imran what we were shooting and where. He told me we were shooting a movie instead of a TV commercial. "It's crime, crime movie," he added. However he refused to tell me where it was being shot and I kind of wanted to know where they were going to take us. "Give me five minutes and I show you on the map, okay?" he said, keeping me at bay while he turned his attention to his phone and his assistant.
After about fifteen minutes several other extras had shown up and Imran told us to go with his assistant. He didn't say where we were going but we dutifully followed the assistant, who didn't give any indication that he understood English. He led us all the way to the roundabout near the Chattrapati Shivaji Museum where a bus was waiting to take us to... where? The assistant was now chatting with some other people who presumably worked either for Imran or a movie studio. I asked them where we were going.
"Bandra," one of them said shortly. "Please get on the bus now."

Inside the bus were about 30 hires of the day: Germans, Australians, Norwegians, An Israeli couple, two South Koreans, several British people including the couple I met in front of the Salvation Army, and a few Danes. There was also a Russian girl who worked as a reporter and told me she planned to write an article about her experience on a Bollywood set. I said: "Hey, I'm going to be blogging about this."
There were no other Dutch people on the bus beside me.
Though we were told to get on the bus quickly, it ended up just sitting there for another fifteen minutes until Imran showed up and shortly briefed us on the day. We would be going to set location for a gangster movie. Shooting would last until about 10 to 11pm and we would be provided with lunch, dinner and water or chai.
Imran stepped out of the bus again and it drove off northwards through Mumbai traffic. After about fifteen minutes we drove up the causeway and got a wonderful view of the city.
On the bus I got into a conversation with a German woman. Initially we spoke English but the conversation soon switched to German, a language I didn't turn out to master as well as I thought. Her name was Victoria and she had actually been living in Australia for several years, working there as a massage therapist.
Along the way I tried to follow the route on the map to know where we were going, annd it quickly became clear we weren't going to Bandra at all. We ended up at the northwest tip of the Juhu area at a seaside hotel. Or at least it used to be a hotel; now it only served as a filming location. Some of my fellow actors thought they recognized it from Slumdog Millionaire.
Most of the hotel and the lot around it had been stripped bare of anything resembling decoration and the whole compound looked like it was either derelict or closed for enduring renovations.
The only part of the hotel left mostly intact was the entrance and lobby. Decorated in marble and pine finishing, it had that perennial sixties' hotel style.
One corner of the lobby was notably stripped down to the concrete. This is where the crew had set up shop. It was a safe haven out of view from the camera. There were thick cables everywhere on the floor, even outside. In several corners lamp posts had been set up.
The place was swarming with people: small time actors, extras, wardrobe and make-up artists, technicians and several people who seemed to be in charge of something, but nobody yet that gave the impression of being a well-known star.

Us western extras were sent off to the wardrobe, which was no more than a set of clothing racks arranged in a rectangle in the middle of the compound. Men's clothes were on one side, women's on the other, and we queued up at our gender-specific side. The men were mostly given dress pants and a jacket, then sent off to the next clothing rack to be provided with colorful button-up shirts. Upon close inspection our pants all turned out to be bell-bottoms and we joked about Indian style being stuck in the seventies. We had no idea what movie we were going to be in.
Then somebody told us to queue up at a row of large metal boxes, which turned out to contain shoes. The shoes were all black or brown leather, and lacked sizes suitable for western feet. I was given a pair of black size 9 shoes, even though I'm a size 10. Suddenly the day ahead was looking a lot less bright.

After wardrobe we were sent off around the corner to behind the hotel where two rows of trailers stood in the building's shadow. Pieces of paper on the doors indicated that one row consisted of make up/changing rooms and the trailers in the other row were reserved for specific people. None of the names sounded familiar to us in any way.
I piled into one of the narrow changing trailers with about ten other guys and we were told to wait for make-up. After a while a short, skinny Indian man entered our trailer, carrying a make-up bag. He didn't seem to understand English so we were comfortable joking about him not resembling the make-up artists you usually see in L'Oreal commercials. One of the Koreans had been given a gray suit that more resembled a military uniform, eliciting the remark that he looked like Kim-Jong Il.
One by one we were adorned with long stick-on sideburns and our hairs were coiffed like it was 1972. Together with the bell-bottom pants our make-up gave us a reasonable idea of the time period in which the movie we were shooting for, took place.

When make up was done, one of the shot-callers we had seen before, peeked inside the trailer and, upon concluding we were finished with make up, told us to get out and assemble in front of the trailer.
Outside we were joined by the women who had received considerably more attention from the make-up crew than us guys. They all wore either light summer dresses or skirts with matching tops.
Victoria stood there slightly bashful. She had been given a light dress with cleavage so low that she was unable to wear a bra. This ensured her of the undivided attention of the male Indian extras who acted as if they had never before seen a woman.
A young man came up to us and introduced himself as Bikas. Slightly sheepishly he explained he was here to look after us and that he would take care of our personal belongings. He also introduced the Indian chai wallah (tea man) standing next to him.
"If you want water or chai, go to this man and he will give it to you, " he explained. "When we leave, just give him 20 rupees and it's okay."

The most bossy of the assistant directors reappeared and organized several of us in pairs. Some couples were told to, well, act like couples. Victoria and me were told to do the same and we weren't sure if we were being mistaken for an actual couple or not.
The assistant director beckoned us to follow him and positioned us on a stretch of palm tree lined grass behind the hotel. The grass formed the back end of the compound, right behind it was a chain link fence that separated the compound from the beach. The star of the movie (I later learned his name is Ajay Devgan) was to walk along a concrete path in front of the grass, and we would be background dressing.
Dozens of locals had gathered on the beach behind the chain link fence and were observing the shooting like hawks. On the other side of the grass stood an arsenal of lights and cameras amidst about thirty on-set workers who all seemed to have the same indistinguishable task.
Victoria and me sat down with some Indian extras, whose colorful and expensive looking costumes couldn't have come from the same wardrobe as ours. They were also organized in couples and while the men were excessively soignéd to the point where they seemed slightly sleazy, the women looked absolutely gorgeous.
At first they seemed to treat us with a kind of disdain. After all they were professional actors/extras and we were just hired for the day. We asked them about the movie and about the hotel where we were shooting. They weren't able to tell us much more than we already knew.
Some of the men took a particular interest in Victoria and her light attire and she turned around to chat with them.
Bikas came up to the group and sat down next to me. After a little chit-chat he came to the point.
"Victoria, she is beautiful, yes?"
I concurred, amused at the way her clothing brought Indian heads to a boiling point.
"Do you know where is she from?"
"She's from Germany," I said.
"Oh, " Bikas replied not immediately knowing what to say. "Um, what language does she speak?"
"Well, German of course."
"You speak German?"
"A little."
"Can you tell me, how do you say 'beautiful' in German?" he eagerly inquired with a shimmer of desire in his eyes.
"Schön." I said.
"Schnö, " he replied.
"Very good."

Suddenly the set became more lively and noisy. We looked up and saw several important looking people appearing, prompting all the set workers to try and seem busy.
One of the Indian extras pointed at man wearing a while baseball cap and a purple shirt. "The man in the purple shirt is the director, " he clarified, "he's very famous."
Now the star of the movie appeared, a fierce looking man in a spotless white suit. He was dressed like a '70s era gangster and didn't look unlike Shaft, albeit the Indian version. Four people with umbrellas followed him everywhere he went and prevented even a single ray of sunshine from ruining his relatively white complexion.
Everybody got on their feet, the director took hold of a bullhorn and started calling around instructions. Several assistants independently instructed the 'couples' to walk back and forth across the grass and to give the impression of being newlyweds on their honeymoon.
Out on the beach some men in brown gray uniforms were ushering the onlookers away, so they wouldn't ruin the shot by being in it. The uniformed men carried wooden sticks which were useful in persuading the more hardheaded spectators to go elsewhere.

We all took the places which were assigned to us. Victoria and me stood closest to the camera and I was nervous. This was my first time on a movie set and I desperately did not want to be the one guy that ruins the shot.
Before this, I'd only seen movie sets in behind-the-scenes features and those were usually Hollywood sets. In Bollywood, things went quite differently. Due to all the noise and activity it was often unclear what was going on. Besides the director there were at least two other people with bullhorns. Several different people gave the extras instructions, and these hardly ever coincided. Also of note was the fact that they only used one camera at a time.

One take was done to try everything out. Victoria and me walked calmly across the grass holding hands. We just barely avoided a collision with an Indian couple walking straight towards us.
"Cut, reset!" the director called into his bullhorn. We went back to our starting positions, where one of the assistants critiqued our performance.
"Guys, guys, " he said, "you are walking around like zombies. I want to see some happy people! Chin up, stand straight and make everyone look good!"
The next take went better and afterwards the assistant gave us a thumbs up. We did a few more takes like this before the director called for lunchtime.

All the extras and lesser actors queued up for food while the more privileged Bollywoodians disappeared into their trailers. Our lunch was good enough, if nothing special. We got rice with peas, chicken and some samosas. I sat down with some other westerners and immediately took of my shoes, which were wreaking havoc on my feet.
Some Indian extras joined us. They played hotel doormen and were dressed up in neat cream white uniforms and wore bright red turbans. We asked them about the movie we were shooting. One of the doormen seemed to know more about the shooting schedule. Today we would only shoot scenes of the main star arriving at a hotel. Tomorrow, there would be some action.
The doormen pointed at himself excitedly and said: "I get shot tomorrow!"

After lunch we proceeded inside. The next scene took place in the lobby and involved the main star pacing angrily into the hotel (he did a lot of angry pacing that day). The cool interior was a nice change from the scorching heat outside.
This time, me and my newlywed wife were told to walk towards the center of the lobby, facing the main star as he entered, and looking in puzzlement at the strange, seething man that crossed our path.
After the first two takes the director called out for a change of camera (as I mentioned earlier, they only used one camera at a time) and this took a good twenty minutes while everyone else idled around the set. During this time several makeup artists roamed around and regularly corrected someone's makeup. My sideburns received some extra stage glue and grime to match them with the color of my hair.
One of the assistants came up to us once again with instructions. For the next take he wanted us to walk towards the center of the lobby as before, but this time we were to break into an argument as we passed the main star. Never mind that it wouldn't mesh with the takes done so far. We had a lot of fun improvising a fight, a silent one of course. On our way we would pass a couch where several of our co-extras were seated. After some deliberation we agreed to walk arm in arm past the couch, where my gaze would linger too long on one of the women causing my wife to have a fit of jealousy in front of everyone. How embarrassing.
At the sound of "Action!" we performed our role with verve. When the take was done another reset call sounded. As we assumed our starting positions I asked the assistant if we did alright.
"Yes, just keep doing this, " he answered. "You are my favorite people."
We did another couple of takes this way, showing off all our improvisational acting talent.

The next scene took place in roughly the same setting, but this time the shot focused on the hotel entrance. Me and Victoria were positioned outside the hotel. The entrance had two doors next to each other. The main star would enter through the leftmost door, and several hotel guests, including us, would enter through the right door. Two turbaned doormen opened and closed the door for each couple separately, so we had to wait for them to give us a cue before walking forward. This was not easy as the set was still largely chaotic with people from all sides giving directions. A female assistant had now joined the gang of assistants and was keeping an eye on things on the outside of the entrance. She attempted to cue our entrance but when she told us to start walking, the doormen weren't ready yet and during the first take we almost bumped into the door making our entrance look incredibly clumsy.
We did better on the next few takes and after another twenty minutes of waiting for a camera change, she gave us the instruction to go left immediately after we entered the lobby. One of the male assistants who had coached us before, joined her and added: "I want to see people happy in love, remember this is your honeymoon!"
We heard the call for action and, on cue, entered the hotel. The entrance was always a bit clumsy as the hotel's glass facade was covered up to shun outside light, so we couldn't see what was going on inside until we had actually walked in through the door. Nevertheless, we did alright this time and smoothly walked in while holding hands and exchanging loving gazes in an extremely hammy fashion.
As we walked in and made a left I saw we were walking directly towards the camera. For a moment we were thrown off guard but we whispered 'keep going' to each other and continued walking the same way we had entered.
When the take was done, one assistant who had been standing next to the camera, approached us and whispered: "Immortality is nice!"
Victoria and I smiled contently at this remark. Feeling very good about our performance, we joined the other extras outside for dinner.

Dinner was distributed in the same way as lunch, but consisted of mostly sweet food. There was sweetened corn, sugared corn flakes in fruit sauce and chicken with a sweet, barbecuey flavor. It was good to finally get some sweet food in India.
The last shot took place outside the front entrance. It was dark by now and bright spots were set up around the driveway in front of the hotel.
In this last scene the star was to arrive at the hotel in his car, a menacing vintage model. Several other vintage cars lined the driveway. Once again a crowd of spectators had amassed, this time at the end of the driveway at street side. Since they were out of the shot, they could stay.

Several assistants got involved with preparing the set. The director decided he wanted the vintage cars to be arranged differently. What followed was a fifteen-minute display where several set hands drove the cars around the driveway, getting in each other's way or having trouble controlling the cars, which weren't exactly in mint condition mechanically.
One driver had a big problem. His car was parked bumper-to-bumper with another, but the director wanted him to move his car to the other side of the driveway. The car's reverse gear turned out not to be working so he slowly maneuvered the car from its narrow position.
I couldn't help myself from imagining the Benny Hill theme on top of this bit of situational comedy.
For this last shot, I had been teamed up with Rob, a cheerful Australian evidently of Aboriginal descent. We were to play two cool cats who walked slowly towards the hotel entrance from the far end of the driveway, as the star arrived.
The main guy crossed our path while entering and we had to time our walking so as to avoid getting hit. On most takes, the star employed a driver, but on later takes he took the wheel himself.

After about five takes the director called it a wrap and everybody applauded. It was well past 10pm and I was finally free of the shoes. The ladies were called back in for makeup removal, which for the guys meant no more than having our fake sideburns removed rather unceremoniously.
We all handed in our clothes and shoes and waited for the women to come back. I hardly recognized Victoria without the excessive makeup.
We all got on the bus back to town. Bikas paid us each our hard earned 500 rupees, reminded us to pay the chai wallah and after receiving 20 rupees per head for the tea man, he bid us farewell. I looked at my Bollywood money. Mahatma Ghandi smiled at me from the 500 rupee bill.
I sat next to Victoria on the way back. We chatted for a while, but my ability to speak anything other than Dutch diminishes severely when I'm exhausted and she was too tired to talk in any language.

Along the way several of the guys asked if we could stop at a liquor store. The bus driver complied and they hurried out of the bus to a store across the street. They came back with a box of Kingfisher beer and a few bottles of liquor and we drove on.
When we finally came back at the [Blabla] mall everyone said goodbye and returned to their hotel. I had to hurry back to the Fort area to be in before my hotel's midnight curfew. I barely made it and went straight to bed. With that, my Bollywood career concluded.

Swadha recently told me that the practice of hiring foreign extras for cheap had once again led to riots by local actors losing work to tourists who value the experience more than the money. It's not the first time this has happened, but this time it led to a ban on using foreign actors. All this apparently took place not long after I had my fifteen minutes of fame. Looks like I got to see Bollywood just in time.

Yalong and I had agreed to meet at the Gateway to India at 8am to go to Elephanta Island.
Me and the woman from the hotel went for breakfast at about 7. Her name was Yael and she was born in Israel but lived in the United States.
The owner of Manglore Naaz recognized me from the night before and greeted me amiably. After we had been examining the menu for a minute, the owner came to our table. While Yael studied the menu for a little longer, I ordered some appam bread, an onion omelet and chai. The restaurant owner assumed we were a couple and, with me being the man, took my order as being for both Yael and me. He disappeared into the back of the restaurant without waiting for Yael to decide. We laughed in amazement.
I went on my way to the Gateway at 7:30.

Yalong already strolled around the Gateway as I got there, having fun with Indians who wanted their picture taken with him.
A local photographer showed us some polaroids and asked if we wanted him to take a picture. We said no thank you. He moved on to a couple of Indian men who promptly patted Yalong and me on the shoulder and asked us to pose with them. A few other Indians followed suit now they had seen that we were willing to pose.
At the dock right behind the Gateway to India, we took a ferry to Elephanta Island costing 120 rupees. For another ten rupees we could go to the upper deck. Being the only non-Indians on board we received a lot of attention from the other passengers. Yalong however, was fascinated by the flock of seagulls that followed the boat. Even though he lived in Shanghai, he had apparently never seen seagulls before.
On the upper deck with us was an Indian mother with her 3 sons and her sister. The oldest of the sons was very interested in us, especially when he heard I worked in IT. At age 12 he was a few years away from college but already he knew he wanted to work in IT as well. He asked me if it was hard to make a career. I told him no, if you're good, and this answer pleased him a lot.
Then the boy invited us to take our picture together. His aunt tried to make a photo but her camera's batteries were dead, so I gave her a pair of my spare ones.

The ferry took a good hour to get to Elephanta. On the way we passed a lot of naval industry: supertankers being filled through offshore pipelines that could well be miles long, huge container terminals, but only a few fishermen. Elephanta Island appeared in the distance, a small green and quiet oasis amidst the heavy industry. The island is home to several sacred Hindu temples which have all been carved out into a mountain. These so-called Elephanta Caves are the main, and pretty much the sole, attraction besides a pair of sea cannons left behind by the British.
The ferry docked at a long pier along which goats and chickens rummaged through piles of garbage. A rusty old steam train was there to take tourists to the end of the pier, but it cost 15 rupees and that didn't seem worth it considering the distance. We started walking and about halfway to shore the train chugged past us at a marginally faster pace.
At the end of the pier there were three more hurdles. The first one was a gate where we had to pay 5 rupees in state tourism tax (for which we received a receipt). After that came some 300 meter long stairs going uphill. The stairs were lined with souvenir stalls and since it wasn't a very busy day, every tourist was sure to become a target for all the salespeople. We did some preliminary looking and bargaining to determine a base price for which to negotiate on the way back.

Then atop the stairs, past a few restaurants and food stalls, was the last hurdle: the main gate. The sign said: "entrance fee: Indian citizen 25 rupees / foreigner 250 rupees".
We gathered the money and stepped up to the ticketing booth where a portly Indian man sat, flanked by another man who had his feet propped up on a wooden box. Both of them wore khaki uniforms.
The man at the window greeted us and said: "500 rupees." Then his voice turned to a whisper and he continued: "But I make you a deal, ok? Each of you, " he emphasized his words by pointing a finger at both Yalong and me, "each of you one hundred fifty rupees."
This generous offer baffled us so much that it wasn't until after we handed him 150 rupees each and walked through the gate, that we realized the man hadn't given us a ticket or receipt of any kind. A sign on a nearby wall taunted us: "Persons found inside the national park without a valid entry ticket will be fined up to 2000 rupees".
We looked back at the guards by the gate who had let us go inside without asking to see our tickets, and we shrugged off any worries about the arrangement.

Now we found ourselves on a cobblestone courtyard, the hillside to our left and the entrance to the first cave to the left. I wanted to proceed to the first cave, but Yalong's attention was drawn to the large number of monkeys that roamed freely around the area. Though they were all plain and simple macaques, a family of monkeys found across all of Asia, Yalong had never been so close to monkeys and was enthralled by the new experience. Ever since visiting the city of Lopburi in Thailand and being attacked by monkeys in Malaysia, I'd had more than my share of close encounters, but Yalong seemed more interested in the monkeys than by the temple caves. He studied the behavior of the monkeys like a real biologist, throwing sticks towards the monkeys to see how they would react. Most of the sticks got no more than a disinterested glance and the macaques went about their business. This business included searching trash cans for food, fighting or frolicking with other monkeys or just lazing around in the sunshine. Yalong observed it all with immeasurable fascination.

Anyway, on to the caves. The first cave was also by far the most impressive one: about 6 meters high and perhaps 100 meters deep, most of it consisted of flat, undecorated floor and ceiling with rows of pillars for support. The back wall of the cave, however, was covered in bas-relief carvings, not unlike those in Angkor Wat, and some larger sculptures of various Hindu gods.
The other six Elephanta caves were increasingly more uninteresting, the last one being no more than a hollowed-out natural cave with a simple altar inside. A few withered flowers lay on top of the altar.

To get to the two cannons, we had to climb much further uphill, no easy task in 35 degrees. By then it was 1pm and the sun was at its most merciless. A local woman sat beside the dusty path with two baskets beside her on the ground. Most tourists ignored her but when she hailed us Yalong stopped and asked her what was in the baskets. She pointed at one basket, which contained green berries, looking hard and glazy, and said: "For eat." When Yalong asked if he could try one she thought he had misunderstood her, but he persisted and picked up a berry, asking her if it was ok. She made a relenting gesture. Yalong made a sour face when he bit into the fruit. I asked him what it tasted like but he told me to try it myself. The berry tasted very sour and seemed unripe, but it was juicy and I could see it making for good nutrition if you had nothing else on hand.
Yalong pointed at the other basket. "For monkey," the lady explained. The basket contained what might be the ripe version of the fruit in the first basket, only these berries were softer and red. Despite the lady's insistence that these berries weren't for human consumption, Yalong couldn't resist the urge to try. "Not that bad, " he reported, but I decided against trying the red berries.
Yalong negotiated with the lady until he had a price to his liking. He bought some green berries as well as some red ones and the Indian woman wrapped them separately in pieces of old newspaper.
While she was doing this she explained to us that she lived in the nearby village and depended on the fruit bearing trees around the hill for her income.

We ate some of the green berries on our way up the hill, but I gave up after three of them. They were just too sour.
The cannons were a bit of a letdown. Both were disabled and basically nothing remained except the bare gun barrels on their mounts. We strolled around the hill some more, going off the beaten path where we ran into two Indian men who were admiring a tree in full bloom. Loads of white flowers grew on it, and one of the men told us they were edible. He immediately proceeded to demonstrate this. We politely declined when he offered us some of the flowers.
After another ten minutes we went over the hill's ridge. The illusion of the quiet, peaceful island we had so far was broken by the view of a large container transfer terminal on the other side.

It was about two o' clock when we headed back downhill. At a vegetarian restaurant we had thali lunch. Several monkeys prowled around the restaurant looking for an opportunity to snatch some food away from an inattentive tourist. The owner of the restaurant was vigilant however, so when two monkeys slowly made their way towards our table he chased them off with a slingshot and a lot of shouting. The monkeys made for the trees screaming and hissing.
Yalong was still fascinated with the monkeys and didn't want to leave just yet. When his bottle of lime soda was almost empty, he screwed the top back on and threw it towards a group of monkeys. One of them quickly grabbed it and made off into the trees. At first, to Yalong's amazement, the monkey worked on opening the lid. After a while it gave up and simply bit a hole in the bottom of the plastic bottle. Yalong was disappointed.

On our way back to the pier we got some good deals on souvenirs. I bought a wooden figurine of Ganesha for 80 rupees and a bronze figurine of Hanuman for 200.
Back on the boat we opted to pay ten rupees to sit on the upper deck again. Both of us fell asleep from exhaustion but woke just in time to see the Gateway come into view.
We went back to Baghdadi Restaurant for dinner and afterwards I walked Yalong back to the Salvation Army hostel and bid him goodnight before making my way back to Fort.

As I walked along the Colaba Causeway a broad shouldered Indian man with buzz-cut hair, a rare sight, hailed me: "Hello my friend, you want to be in a Bollywood movie?"
Perfect! That was one of the things I was hoping to do while in Mumbai. I didn't even mind changing my plans to go to Sanjay Ghandi National park, or to Haji Ali Masjid. The man introduced himself as Imran, scout for foreign models. He needed western guys to serve as background dressing for a commercial. I asked him what the commercial was for and without saying anything he took out his cell phone and called someone.
"Yes, hello?" he said when his call was answered. "The commercial with the football match scene, what is it for? What product?"
He nodded and hummed "Uh-huh" while the man on the other end of the line explained. Then he hung up and turned to me: "It's for West. The cigarette brand."
I was disappointed about being in a commercial instead of a genuine movie but figured it was better than nothing. I told Imran I was okay with it. He handed me his card and told me to meet him on the far corner of the street in front of the Salvation Army.
"Not Salvation Army itself," he stressed, "the other corner."
I told him I understood. Imran put out his hand and I took it. I shook his hand while he practically squeezed mine to a pulp. What is it with Asians and hand shaking?

Both Mike and me were under the impression, so informed by locals, that there would be a big parade for Republic Day. This turned out not to be true and we decided to move ahead our plans to visit Dharavi.
One of the largest slums in Mumbai, Dharavi was also the set for several scenes in Slumdog Millionaire and the former home of some of the child stars in the same movie. To get there we took the train to Mahim Junction and as soon as we arrived we could see the outskirts of the slums: rickety shacks built beside the railroad tracks.
From the bridge across the tracks we got an excellent, not to mention very confronting, view of Dharavi. Lines and lines of shanties around a few blocks of crumbling apartment buildings.

The stairs on the other side of the bridge led straight into the slums. A dusty cricket field was one of the first things we saw. People lined the entire fence surrounding the field. When we came closer to take a look, several people turned their attention to us. They informed us a cricket competition in celebration of Republic Day was taking place. For only 600 rupees, we could watch from the VIP lounge. We looked across the field at the tarp-covered platform where several serious looking Indians sat behind a table.
"Thank you, but we came to walk around," we said, politely declining the offer.
The whole area, including the apartment buildings and a low building that looked almost as if it was made out of limestone, were copiously decorated in India's national colors: orange, white and green like the flag. People donned flag pins on their clothes, children waved little Indian flags around. Republic Day is one of the few national holidays on which most businesses close, schools are out and government employees get the day off. Everyone was making sure to enjoy this rare day to the fullest and broad smiles were all around.
As we walked further, a group of kids surrounded us. After the usual hellos and how-are-yous they ushered us towards a flag pole that stood in front of a school building and saluted the flag, urging us to do the same. We saluted the Indian flag with verve and the children were thoroughly amused.

Neither of us felt quite at ease. This was not a tourist area and though people had been friendly, they were making it quite clear that we were treading on their territory. So we went ahead carefully, occasionally greeting people with "Namaskar" or "As-salaam aleikoum" as applicable but I felt uncomfortable about taking pictures, not knowing whether this would be met with disapproval.
We walked down a road that seemed to divide the area in a Hindu area and a Muslim area. I had reservations against entering the Muslim area and we decided to go to the Hindu area first.

There was a small but beautiful Hindu temple. An old, toothless Hindu man gestured at us, inviting us in. There he introduced us to a Hindu monk, pointing at the man and then at the ground to indicate he was the proprietor of the temple. We greeted the monk and, with gestures, asked for permission to enter and take pictures. He generously opened his hands and nodded.
The temple was dedicated to my second favorite Hindu god, Ganesha, the god of wisdom, but it also had a few large statues of my number one favorite: the monkey god Hanuman.

As we left the temple, the toothless man, the monk and several other people outside the temple greeted us amiably. This made us comfortable enough to have a look in the Muslim area.
One Muslim man curiously informed where we were going and I indicated the mosque. "Is it ok to see the masjid?" I asked in simplified English. The man indicated we could go into the Muslim area, but that the mosque was off limits.
We wandered around some of the side streets. In one of them, a barber was busy shaving a man. When he saw the camera in my hand, the barber made inviting gestures, adding: "Photo, photo!" I aimed my camera and he took a pose, holding his razor blade against the face of his poor customer while looking into the lens. I showed him the result and he was pleased, humming approvingly and tilting his head enthusiastically. I then showed the picture to the customer, face half covered in shaving cream, who didn't have much of a choice beside humming lightly.
A young boy had been watching and was now more than eager to have his picture taken. I held my camera with much aplomb, kneeling down for a good shot. The boy shyly looked into the lens.

My camera had caught the attention of several other people, most of whom were too bashful to come up and ask, but their body language indicated their eagerness. I don't know what they thought I was, perhaps a journalist?
The excitement reached a high point when we passed a row of run-down little restaurants. A group of children gathered around us, giggling nervously and teasing each other to avoid being the one who would have to ask for a photo.
The bravest two looked up at Yalong and me. "Hello sir!" they exclaimed excitedly. "Photo? Please!"
"OK," I said and aimed my camera with broad motions, waiting for the kids to shuffle around and take poses. Seeing the result on the LCD screen sent them wild. Now several adults wanted in on the fun. Some teens pointed at another teen making chappati bread and I took a picture of him.
Then one man, possibly the owner of the restaurant, smiled broadly while pointing at himself. I pointed my camera at him but he held up his hand and instead ran inside to take position behind a huge pot of boiling chai. He took a ladle and demonstratively stirred the chai, looking proudly into the lens. As I showed him the picture, his smile widened even more.
Yalong had gone inside the restaurant and met two local guys, probably early to mid-twenties. They were drinking chai at a table in the poorly lit restaurant. One of them pleaded humbly for me to take their picture and as soon as I took aim, they took on a tough guy pose and stared into the lens with a suave look.
People wouldn't let us go. More children flocked around us and even adults gathered around. We kindly greeted everyone and walked onward.

Around the corner we came into a dead end street lined with debris on the side. Three small boys were playing cricket, using debris wood for the goal posts and bats, and a plastic ball. We were promptly invited to join the game. The oldest of the boys, perhaps about eight, threw the ball as I took bat, hitting the ball any which way but straight, causing the youngest boy, no older than five, to hurry after the ball and proudly returning it. Then the older boy took up the bat to Yalong's pitches.
Of course they all wanted their picture taken. The oldest boy posed straight, arms at his side and his chin and chest forward, the younger boys just looked shyly into the lens.
Again people gathered to have their picture taken. A group of small Hindu girls in colorful saris, some older Muslim men, various children, teenagers,... If we hadn't continued on our way we could have still been there taking people's pictures.
We walked a few streets further and noticed three small boys were following us ever since the restaurant. They were much more assertive than the other children we had seen, and now started harassing us for money. We declined and kept walking.
Parked on the side of the street was a colorfully decorated freight truck, one of the countless vehicles owned by so-called goods carriers: people who owned a truck, car or even a motorcycle, and were for hire to simply transport goods from A to B. Most of these trucks, much like the taxis, are very nicely painted, in bright tasteful colors and intricate patterns. Yalong asked me to take a picture as he stood on the side of the truck, holding the hand rail on the passenger door. An older Indian man with his two sons joined us. Indicating he owned the truck, the older man and his sons posed beside the truck for another picture.
A frazzled looking old man, missing half his teeth, stood there watching. When I looked at him he mumbled something while indicating himself. So I took another picture.

The three boys that were following us still hadn't given up. We tried to shake them off by walking, hoping they wouldn't stray too far from the area where we had picked them up. It didn't help. They kept following us, asking us for money more and more aggressively.
We kept declining, trying to remain as friendly as we could, but they were really testing our patience. But what the hell can you do in a situation like this? Our insistence to not give them any money didn't work: the boys seemed to think they could make a buck if they were able to push us far enough. I wanted to slap one or two of them at this point, but it didn't seem like a good idea considering the area we were in. As friendly as most people had been, there's no telling how many locals would come to the defense of the children if we exhibited any kind of aggression towards them.
At some point they threw rocks and food at us and Yalong and I decided we had had enough. When we came to an area we had visited before, we took the shortest route back to the station, with the boys still on our tail. They threw some more things at us, disregarding the corrective shouts from some of the adults standing by the side of the road.
The boys followed us all the way back to the station, shouting at us for money. A group of teenagers came towards us and asked if the boys were bothering us. When I confirmed, the teens proceeded to push the little boys around.
"Please, stop," I said, "it's okay."
We reached the ticket office, still being shouted at by the boys and wanting to get away really bad. Yalong went to buy our tickets and the boys focused on me.
"Money!" they said, holding up their hands.
I looked at them as displeased as I could and told them no.
"Why not?" they said with a certain degree of indignation.
"Because you threw stones and food at us. Do you really think you're going to get any money now?"
Their posture changed greatly as they now looked despondently at their feet, realizing they weren't going to get anything no matter how hard they tried.
Yalong came back with our tickets. Earlier we had decided to go to Bandra after we visited Dharavi. This meant we had to get a northbound train.
The boys asked me where we were going and I lied: "CST." In a desperate last attempt at making money, they ran ahead of us to lead us to the right platform. They were at the other side of the railroad bridge before noticing that we had gone to another platform and caught a train right away.

We sighed with relief. It was good to finally be rid of the aggressive boys. The train was nearly empty at this hour. We stood in the doorway of the train once again, enjoying the afternoon sun as we headed northwards.
Bandra station was only a few stops away. The suburb was a welcome change from the slum. We headed into an area filled with shops and restaurants and looked for a place to eat. There was a fresh juice stand, an opportunity Yalong couldn't pass. We both drank a glass of watermelon juice and Yalong topped it off with two glasses of orange juice.
On the far corner of the area we found a Muslim restaurant where Yalong ordered chicken pulav and I chose the chicken biryani. Around us the restaurant was buzzing with activity but we were too busy mentally processing our visit to Dharavi to take any notice.

The sun shone mercilessly and I took out my bottle of sunscreen. Several Indians watched with great surprise as I applied the cream to my neck, forehead, nose and arms. White skin is considered a status symbol in India and for all I know the Indians around me thought the white cream is what us Caucasians use to keep our skin pale.
Two Indians sat in a car right beside me. The man on the driver's seat pointed at my sunscreen bottle and held up his hand through the open window. I poured some sunscreen into his hand. He looked puzzled at the little gob of cream, not knowing what to do with it, so I poured some cream into my hand and led by example. He followed my every move, rubbing cream on his neck , nose and forehead as I did. He didn't do a good job of rubbing it out and I had to keep myself from laughing at the big speck of white cream on his dark brown nose.

Yalong and I were not sure where to go from here so we decided to simply walk around the area. Right outside the restaurant area we passed a very polluted still-water lake. On the tiny garbage covered beach, an Indian teenager was placing fishing lines about two meters apart. He used beer cans and milk cartons found amongst the garbage to keep the fishing lines in place.
A brand new office building across the lake, housing an internationally known accounting company and sporting a dark glass facade, stood in stark contrast to the lake below it.
Several people sitting on a low wall beside the lake watched the boy go about his business. We watched in awe and disbelief, incredulous at the fact that there could be fish in the murky green, garbage filled water. One of the locals on the wall understood our puzzlement and called out to the boy. He took a plastic bag from the ground and to our amazement, took out a pretty large fish, showing it to us. The bag writhed on the ground and evidenced that the catch had been good.
As the boy started preparing another fishing line, we tried to get a glimpse of the bait he used as we wondered whether he would use trash for that as well. The same man as before called out to the boy again and the latter held up a worm in his hand.

Walking further we entered a much quieter and much more wealthy residential area. Slim but luxurious apartment towers were divided by quiet roads, lined with palm trees. Children were playing cricket on some of the roads.
We walked back along a busy through faring road where traffic to and from central Mumbai roared. As we tried to cross the road, a homeless woman came up next to us and begged for money. She carried her daughter in her arms. The girl was perhaps eight or nine years old. One of her forearms was covered entirely in horrible burns. The homeless woman held up the girl's arm to affirm her pleas and I gave her a 500 rupee bill without really thinking about it. As we crossed the road I wondered how on earth my 500 rupees were going to do anything about the little girl's burns, not the type of thought you need to be having when you're crossing a busy Mumbai street.

Back at Bandra station, we took the first train back to CST. We found a Muslim restaurant along Dr. DN Road, sporting a sign that read in huge cursive letters: "Chinese food also".
Yalong was enticed by the food on the table behind us. He tried to ask the waiter to bring him the same, but the latter didn't understand. After a lot of confusion and attempts at explaining, the waiter evaded more insecurity by humming and gesturing reassuringly. As he walked back to the kitchen, shouting out something to the people in the back, we were left to wonder what food we would get. When a young teen brought plates of food to our table, we found our order hadn't really come through like we wanted, but we decided to go with the food given to us. It was pointless to attempt any further communication with the staff.
A Muslim family, mother and father and two children, was seated at the table to our left. Something was not to the liking of the father and he vented his anger on his wife and kids. When his shouting became louder, the embarrassed restaurant staff tried to persuade them to leave. After much indignant shouting and ranting, the father ambled out of the restaurant. His family dutifully followed him outside.

Back at SB Road, near my hotel, the Republic Day festival was in full swing. I ran into the hotel to drop my backpack in my room and ran back outside with my camera.
The same drum band from yesterday was back, but now they stood in the background and provided musical decoration of the sword demonstrations going on in the foreground. Loud fireworks were lit a bit further down the road.
The crowd had gathered close to the stage, apparently too close for the next demonstration: a teenager carrying something that looked like a sabre paced around the stage, waving around his sabre to indicate the space needed. The crowd complied with haste, carefully avoiding the sharp sabre.
Two boys, no older than sixteen, appeared carrying scimitars, They performed an outlandish dance swinging the scimitars all the way against their backs with the dull end. It seemed like a self-chastising ritual but they didn't draw any blood. Spurred on by the drum band, the boys danced faster and faster and seemed to reach a sort of trance.
After a while they exchanged the scimitars for long pokers with tips shaped like crescent moons. They used the tips to pull back their eyelids all the way, thus exposing their eyeballs. They walked circles around the stage, keeping their eyelids back with the pokers.
Finally they left the stage and another man appeared, carrying a sword and a coconut. Another man knelt on the ground before him. The drum band steadily accelerated their tempo, increasing the tension among the audience.
The swordsman placed the coconut on the head of the other man and, after a few practice swings, skillfully cleaved the coconut in two without hurting the kneeling man.
I felt a mixture of awe and terror during the show. The combination of the music, the sword demonstrations, the audience, the whole atmosphere,... made me feel like I was on another planet instead of merely in a faraway country.

After the festival was over, the crowd dispersed and shops and restaurants reopened left and right.
I stood on the sidewalk witnessing the scene. Two Indians stood beside me and we exchanged greetings.
One of them asked me if I needed a taxi. "If so, my friend is the best taxi driver!" he said, pointing to the man next to him.
"And if you need a restaurant," the other man added, "go to him!"
"Where is your restaurant?" I asked to the first man, and he pointed behind him to a building with red on white lettering reading 'Manglore Naaz'.
"What time do you open?" I asked, since I was looking for a good, cheap place to have breakfast close to my hotel.
He shook his hand. "Maybe, 6 o' clock, 6:30."
"Then I'll come have breakfast tomorrow," I promised him.

Back in the hotel I was fumbling around with my room key as a western woman with dark curly hair came out of the room two doors down from mine. I asked her if she had seen the festival.
"I certainly heard it," she said. "What was it like?"
I told her about the drum band and the sword demonstrations. We talked for a while and agreed to have breakfast the next morning. "I just found a really good restaurant," I told her.

I met Mike again in front of the National Gallery of Modern Art. We agreed to meet there at 8:30 and I made sure to be there on time. Mike told me the day before about a German couple he had met in Mumbai. The three of them had agreed to meet each other one morning and spend the day together, but the couple never showed up.
The night before I looked up what buses we could take to Malabar Hill (106 or 108) but Mike suggested to walk there along the seaside. After examining the map we found that it would make a 4km walk from Churchgate along Chowpatty Beach to Malabar Hill. I agreed and we set off westwards straight to the Churchgate seaside. The walk to the seaside took us past two large maidans; long stretches of open green where locals come for a stroll or just to sit down in the grass.

A little further, after passing a large bronze statue of Mahatma Ghandi, we came across a small compound. It was buzzing with activity, lots of people were queued up in front of a central building. Nothing indicated what exactly was going on. Curious as we were, we decided to see how far inside we could go before someone sent us away.
The compound turned out to be an employment station: inside the main hall several recruitment desks were lined up by the walls; a couple of straight-faced Indians behind each of them. Behind each desk a banner or poster hung on the wall, specifying which positions the respective companies were trying to fill. It was mostly telemarketing, tech support and similar work. Wages were specified in three tiers, we tried to ask people what they meant, but all of them were too busy filling out application forms and having them examined by one of the Indians seated behind a desk. It all went with an air of great importance and seriousness. And it probably was: for all we knew this employment station was the one thing between the applications and poverty or worse. Especially the younger applicants had a dead serious look in their eyes that suggested their entire career hinged on their success today. In a city of millions of people all wanting the same jobs it must not be easy to get and keep a job.

Ten minutes later we reached the seaside and could see the entire bay, straddling the Arabian Sea and arching northwards towards Chowpatty and then further westwards to Malabar Hill. The buildings on Malabar Hill were barely visible due to the thick smog.
The coastline at Churchgate was simply a reinforced concrete sea wall. Hundreds of large concrete blocks, shaped like dull caltrops, were spread out along the sea wall to quell the power of the incoming waves.
Some locals had climbed down onto the concrete caltrops and were washing themselves or doing their laundry in the polluted sea water. A man who had been busy scrubbing his shirt with a bar of soap challenged us to clamber down onto the caltrops. Mike took the challenge and after some encouragement and instruction from the locals below us he managed to get one foot on the nearest caltrop. Once he had found his footing on the center of the caltrop he clambered further down over the concrete until he reached the water, then back again and reported to me what was already apparent from a distance: "The water is so dirty!"

After another twenty minutes w reached Mumbai's only beac:, Chowpatty, It was filled with leisuring Indian families. Some parents were getting their children into swimming gear leaving us to wonder if they would actually take a dip in the filthy water.
A bit further, the beach was covered in food and drink stalls. Upon seeing us the stall occupants beckoned us. One of them approached us with menus under his arm and gestured us to climb over the low fence that separated the street from the beach, then pointed instructively to one of the mats.
I took off my shoes before sitting down on the mat but this was met with some puzzled looks. Indeed the people on the mats next to us had kept their shoes on. My feet appreciated the fresh air, however.

With the stall owner crouched next to us, Mike and I examined the menu.
"What do you recommend?" Mike asked the stall owner, who let out an inquisitive hum.
"What's good to eat?" Mike simplified his question.
The owner turned over the menu and pointed at something. "Pahpajee, pahpajee" he repeated.
We looked for the thing he indicated and the closest match was a meal called pav bhaji.
"Pav bjahi?" I asked to confirm. The owner tilted his head and hummed a hum of approval.
We both ordered one. Mike asked the man if he had fresh juice. He didn't understand, but mention of the word ‘drink' resulted in him listing coke, sprite, limca and various other sodas. But nothing that sounded like fresh juice. The owner walked back to his stand, shouting something including the words "pav bhaji" to a teenager inside the stall, who promptly went to work.
Mike noticed the food stall next to ours sold fresh juice. He got up to order us some juice and the juice stall owner soon brought two glasses of fresh orange juice to our mat.
Our pav bhaji arrived soon after. It consisted of a metal tray containing two buns of appam bread, some meat in spicy sauce and some chopped red onion. It tasted very good.

We were now in the middle of Chowpatty beach and not so far from Malabar hill. The nearest point of interest was the Jain Temple. We followed the coastline further westward and soon found ourselves on an inclined road. After several hundred meters we looked down onto the small strip of sand that made a little beach at the foot of the elevated road. To our shock and amazement we saw that there were people living down there. They had makeshift built against the side of the concrete seawall.
Curious as we were we observed them for a little while. One of the people was busy making a fire inside a small stove made from mud. He somehow used wet mud to keep the fire going.
"Look at that," Mike exclaimed, "he's cooking with the mud!" Indeed he seemed to be doing just that.
Suddenly we found we weren't alone anymore. A boy, about nine or ten years old, stood beside us with an MP3 player clutched in his left hand and earphones plugged into his ears. We looked at him and started tilting his head.
"Hello, how are you?" I said.
The boy tilted his head faster as a response.
I put my hand out. "Nice to meet you, what is your name?" It's funny how your standards of communication sink when you're faced with people who aren't familiar with your own culture and language.
The little boy shook my hand enthousiastically and said: "Hamid!"
When I introduced myself the boy moved on to Mike and the ritual repeated itself.
We tried to ask him questions but he barely understood English. I pointed at his earphones and asked: "What are you listening to?" The boy held up his MP3 player for me to see. It was a cheap no-name brand, but the boy insisted it was an iPod.
Then he took the earphones from his ears and handed one earplug to me and the other to Mike. Together we listened to the Hindi dance music on the boy's MP3 player and stuck up our thumbs in approval.
The boy said something in Hindi (or possibly in Marathi) while pointing at me and I figured he was asking to hear some of my music. I happened to have my MP3 player with me that day and I took it out to let him listen to some pop rock. The boy excitedly tilted his head left and right and the meaning of it started to dawn on me.
"Do you know where the Jain temple is?" I asked him. He didn't answer and looked confused.
"Jain temple?" I tried again. The boy pointed further up the road and made some gestures which he further explained in Hindi (or maybe Marathi).
At least we knew we were going roughly in the right direction.

So onwards we went, but not after saying goodbye to the boy. An action that proved unnecessary as he dutifully followed us when we walked up the hill.
A few hundred meters later the road swayed away from the seaside and a low concrete wall with a chain link fence on top of it appeared on the left side. We peeked over the concrete wall and saw a sort of small natural reserve or park. The area was covered in trees. But if it was a park then why was it sealed off from the outside?
The boy held his hands as if firing a rifle and made pew-pew noises. Indeed, a sign on the chain link fence read "Military training ground - no trespassing".
From here the road became more and more steep and we weren't going as fast anymore. We passed a building that we would have never known to be a school if it weren't for the hordes of school children in tidy uniforms that raced down the stairs into the minibuses parked on the street. We became the subject of many curious gazes and some of the braver children called out to us: "Hello sir, how are you?" to which we invariably replied: "Hello, I'm fine, how are you?".
A bit further we saw a small temple across the road. We knew it couldn't be the Jain Temple but we wanted to take a look anyway. The temple was undergoing heavy renovations. A security guard sat outside by the entrance. We were wondering if he would allow us in but after we greeted him and started taking our shoes off to go inside, he made no effort to stop us. However he did carefully study us as we walked around inside, perhaps more out of surprise at these two unusual visitors.
Two sculpturers were hacking away at the marble beside the altar, under the watchful eye of a temple patron. It was possible she had donated money towards the renovation.

We left the small temple and continued uphill.
After a while the road met up with two other roads at a level intersection. The Indian boy pointed at the road that went further upwards, almost adjacent to the one we'd just walked along.
Once more we went up the hill, panting and sweating, and started to wonder how far it was to the Jain Temple. Before we knew it, we found ourselves standing at the temple gate.
The Jain Temple was considerably bigger than the smaller one we had just visited, and much more intricately decorated. Inside the beautiful main hall, many colorful ribbons had been spun between the green marble pillars. Seated on the ground against the back wall of the main hall was a band which softly played soothing and inspiring music.
Several Hindu worshippers were going from altar to altar, saying their prayers. When they were done praying, they rung a bell that hung beside every altar and moved on to the next.
The temple had a second floor which was divided up in rooms. Each room contained beautiful murals and paintings, and of course an altar. Mike and I entered the first room we came across. Two young Hindu women were busy praying at the altar embedded in the far wall, They didn't pay us any notice.
Mike pointed at a mural that covered the entire left wall of the room. It depicted a scene where Vishnu (in his three-faced appearance) intervened in a dispute between two men. On the ground between Vishnu and the two men lay a cobra.
"Have you seen a cobra?" Mike inquired softly so as to not disturb the peaceful atmosphere.
I answered I hadn't. "Well, not in the wild anyway."
"They say in Delhi you can see snake charmers. You heard about them?"
"Yeah, they can hypnotize the snake with their flute."
"And make the cobra dance. I've seen a movie once where a snake charmer could make a cobra shake," he mimed the motion with his upper arm, "like this."
"I'd love to see..."
We were suddenly startled by the sound of a bell directly above our heads. We hadn't noticed we were standing right under the bell. The two Hindu women hurried out of the room, giggling mischievously.
As soon as we came to our senses we walked outside the room to find one of the women giggling at us from behind a pillar, before scurrying off back to her friend.

Beyond the Jain Temple began the Parsi district of Malabar hill. In this area live many ethnic Persians, followers of the Zoroastrian faith, whose ancestors must have come to Mumbai well over a thousand years ago. Their ancient religious practices are upheld to this day.
One particularly interesting, if slightly disturbing, ritual entails placing the bodies of their deceased on a large tower. People are not buried in the Zoroastrian faith. One of such 'towers of silence' was situated somewhere on Malabar hill, but is reported in the Lonely Planet as strictly off limits to outsiders. Nevertheless we hoped to catch a glimpse of it.
The hanging gardens were about ten minutes further uphill. They were basically just a large, beautifully laid out and well maintained park. Several patches of green were separated by meandering gravel paths. Many of them had a group of Indians sitting in the middle, enjoying a conversation in the oasis of quietness inside the noisy city of Mumbai. A man in colorful Panjabi dress turned quite a few heads and several locals had their picture taken with him, in exchange for a small fee.
While walking along one of the paths we crossed ways with an Indian teenager. He smiled at us and spoke the words we had come to know very well: "Hello sir, how are you?"
We stopped to have a chat and I asked him if he knew how to get to the Parsi tower of silence. He pointed upwards to the many crows in the sky and said: "Follow the birds, they fly around the tower and pick the bodies."
The both of us looked up at the birds and a macabre feeling overcame us.

Unfortunately the crows circled an area that was completely surrounded with tall trees. It was impossible to catch a glimpse of the tower of silence. We passed a group of youngsters seated on the sidewalk. Their skin was noticeably lighter than that of Indians and their hair was different too. One of them asked us in a helpful tone what we were looking for.
"The Parsi tower of silence," I explained.
His face turned serious. "Go ask someone else, I don't know," he said dismissively while turning his attention back to his friends. His reaction made it perfectly clear how sensitive the tower is to them.
The road already went steeply downhill and by the time we saw the bottom of the hill, there had been no sight of the tower of silence. What we did encounter, however, was a group of Indian women who aggressively tried to sell us little Indian flags or pins in order for Republic Day the next day. We lost our patience and our polite demeanor when they tried to block our path and just about pushed their wares in our faces. It didn't help to walk away either; they persistently followed us. We finally got rid of them when we came to the end of the road where dozens of cars were waiting in front of a traffic light. The salespeople shifted their attention away from us and to the helpless drivers, who had no way of escape until the lights went green.

By then it was almost two o' clock. Too early to head back already. Mike suggested we take a train in the direction of the suburbs and we took out our maps to look up the nearest train station, which was Grant Road station. On our way there, while examining our maps, an Indian "busy man" offered to guide us there. He led the way at a brisk pace while talking animatedly into his cell phone. When we got there he stopped talking on his phone to point us to the ticket office and the platforms, which were in separate buildings.
But we had noticed a street market opposite the station and went there instead. The market was spread out along both sides of the road. Most salespeople sold fruit, vegetables or both. Several shops lined the street but they were nearly obscured from view by the market.
Mike was very curious about some of the fruit and asked if he could taste some of it. The salespeople started offering us various fruits to try, expecting to sell us a lot. One man handed each of us a brown skinned, oval fruit which we couldn't identify. The salesman and the man next to him watched our curiosity with amusement.
"Coca-cola," they said in chorus when we started smelling the fruit. Indeed, they turned out to be Kola nuts. We bought a bag of kola nuts and a bag of grapes.

From Grant Road station we took a train to Mahalaxmi to see the Dhobi Ghat, or washing grounds, right outside Mahalaxmi station.
This small slum, locked in between the comparatively wealthy suburbs, is where most of the city's laundry is done. The shacks were built around a corridor of washing basins where people toil day after day. It was late and most of the laundry hung out to dry on countless washing lines which hung just about anywhere where there was room.

We were hungry and tired and so we took a train back to Churchgate station. From there we walked back to Colaba and ended up in a restaurant called Bagdadi. The name and the beef on the menu suggested this was a Muslim restaurant, but the staff and patrons were equal parts Hindu and Muslim.
The cashier smiled at us and suggested we sit at the table next to his booth so he could talk to us.
Mike asked him about Indian eating customs and whether or not it was considered rude to use your left hand.
The cashier tilted his head: "Oh yes, left hand is use for wiping the poo."
"But what about left-handed people," Mike asked since it was established earlier that both of us are left-handed, "or are there no left-handed people in India?"
The cashier tilted his head with a slightly longer momentum.
"Oh yes, left hand people in India. Is OK for left hand people to use the left hand. No problem."

It was dark by the time I reached my hotel. Loud noise came from right across SB Road and I went to have a look, camera in hand.
The southbound half of SB Road was blocked by a small stage and numerous onlookers. On stage a percussion group was having a performance. The group was led by a man in his thirties sporting a large drum on his belly, who occasionally stepped aside to make pirouettes, dancing around on the stage and driving back the audience lest they get hit with his drum.
Most of the other players were teenagers, but the youngest member was no older than 10. He and the band leader received rupee bills from people in the audience, to which they did a little dance. The boy would lay the bill on the ground, then rest his stomach on his drum. In this position he tilted forward and picked up the bill by virtue of it sticking to the sweat on his forehead.
The climax included one of the teens climbing on top of the band leader's drum, followed by the little boy who stood on the teen's drum while balancing a glass of water on his head.
I was told by someone standing next to me that this was the first half of a two-day festival in celebration of Republic Day the next day.

"I woke up late, at about noon, just thought that I had to be in Mumbai soon."
The exhaustion from work, the flight to Mumbai and my first day here took their toll on me: even after going to sleep early, I woke up well after twelve and by the time I had showered and dressed it was 2 PM. There was no point in making big plans for the day and I thought I'd walk around Fort and Colaba a little more.
But first I needed some food.

On the corner of Mody Street, facing a side wall of CST station, I found the Koh-i-noor restaurant: a regular Indian place with local patrons and local prices. Fortunately all the menus in all the restaurants were in English. Or more accurately: they were written in the western alphabet. I still had no idea what a dosa, pakoda or samosa were. One thing I did know was chicken massala which I ordered along with a glass of freshly squeezed lime juice (which was only 10 rupees!).
My chicken massala was delivered fairly quickly and I started eating in the assumption that my lime juice would follow shortly thereafter.
The massala turned out to be a lot more spicy than I anticipated and I was starting to need that lime juice. There had been little activity in the kitchen for the last five minutes so I asked one of the restaurant staff, an elderly man, about my lime juice. He gestured reassuringly at me and disappeared into the kitchen while I continued eating my chicken massala and becoming in even larger need of some refreshing, fire extinguishing juice.
The old man took his sweet time but after about 10 minutes he emerged from the kitchen with my eagerly anticipated lime juice, and walked towards my table. Shortly before reaching my table he made a beeline for a some shelves on the nearby wall and started looking for a straw.
"Forget the straw, just give me the goddamn juice!" I thought to myself because the old man hadn't given me the impression that he understood English. He rummaged around the items on the shelves and called out to the kitchen. A reply came from the kitchen and the old man rummaged around some more, leaving me increasingly desperate for the glass of juice in his hands.
He called out something to the kitchen again, something I interpreted as "It's not here!"
The reply must've meant something like: "Yes it is, did you check well enough?"
"Why don't you come out here and show me?" the old man (presumably) replied with great annoyance.
A guy in his late teens and a black t-shirt with a death's head on it emerged from the kitchen and repeated the rummaging around on the shelf, coming up empty handed as the old man had.
Finally he walked behind the counter at the front of the restaurant and retrieved a slightly cracked drinking straw from a dusty drawer. The old man put the straw in the glass and presented it to me.
"Dhanyawad," I said while I removed the straw from the glass and drank it halfway down in one go.
The old man looked indignantly at me and muttered something as he walked back to the kitchen.
After I finished my lunch the man behind the cash register tried to screw me over by not giving me my change and pretending I didn't pay him yet. But after some insistence he reluctantly reopened the cash drawer and took out my change. Like I said: Indians are a bunch of sly bastards.

Instead of going straight to Colaba via Dr DN Road, I went back to SB Road. Yesterday I had ventured into the busy area between SB Road and Dr DN Road. Today I walked into the area on the other side of SB Road and found it to be completely quiet. There was no business, no traffic, only a few pedestrians and most of the buildings gave the impression that they might be vacant. Still, it wasn't a slum of any kind. Most structures were stately office buildings from the colonial era.
Walking ahead I heard some noise coming from an intersection: a group of kids were playing cricket in the middle of the street. I decided to go check it out. There were about 12 kids, ranging from 8 to 16 years old. I stood on one of the corners to observe, making sure not to get in anyone's way.
Let me make it clear that I don't understand cricket. What I saw was two kids with cricket bats on either side of the intersection and behind them goalposts constructed from street debris. The two were surrounded by all the other kids who took field positions at various distances from the batters. In the middle stood a boy holding an old tennis ball.
The boy in the middle threw the ball at the batter on my left. As soon as he hit the ball, everyone sprung into action. Both batters ran towards each other's goalposts, tapping the ground with their bats and running back to their own position. At the same time the field players all rushed to catch the ball. One of the older kids caught it directly in his hands and was cheered on by the rest. It wasn't clear what the consequence of catching the ball was, because both batters kept running at the same pace.

Then I noticed a small food stand left of me, constructed from debris and tarp. where a little boy sold cookies. He gestured me over, took a cookie from the big jar in front of him and showed it to me with an inquisitive look on his face. I asked him how much and he said something in Hindi while holding up five fingers, then raising just his index finger. "OK, one" I said while holding up my index finger. He gave me a cookie. I didn't have exact change so I handed him a 10 rupee bill. The cricket game came back to life, distracting me from the fact that the boy hadn't given me any change.
After I watched the game some more, nibbling on my cookie, he asked: "Coffee? Tea?"
"Tea," I said and he poured some chai into a small glass. I stood there, observing the cricket as I drank my tea and ate my cookie. An older man in a police uniform walked up to the stand and exchanged words with the boy. They seemed to be having a conflict over something and the boy gave the policeman a glass of coffee and a cookie for free.

When the policeman left, the cricket game had died down and the kids shifted their attention to me. At first they kept their distance, shyly smiling at me. When I smiled back, two of the bravest walked towards me and asked "Hello how are you! What is your name!" while wildly shaking my hand. This broke the ice and the rest joined in. A lot of hand shaking and "I'm fime, thank you. How are you? My name is Simon, what's your name?" later, they invited me to play cricket with them. I protested saying I didn't know how to play cricket, but one of the kids pushed a bat into my hands and gestured at one of the goalpost. Another kid stood ready with the ball. As soon as I was in position he threw the ball at me. I was never any good at baseball in high school, but I managed to hit the ball pretty good on the first go. The ball went up in the air and the kids chased it cheering.
They seemed to have simplified the game down to just ball hitting in order to make it accessible to me. We played like this for a while when I indicated I wanted to move on. As I started to thank them, several of them flocked together on the middle of the intersection, taking various picture poses and shouting: "Photo, sir!". I took a few pictures of them and several other kids who came up to have their picture taken.

Onward to Colaba.
After a short while I came to Khala Goda which lies exactly between Fort and Colaba. This area is home to several art galleries. Stuccos depicting colonial scenes were visible on walls in every street.
I passed the Chattrapati Shivaji Museum, formerly known as the Prince of Wales Museum. Like many colonial buildings it had been renamed after a great Marathi warlord to reflect the change of regime.

On the sidewalk sat a group of poor people. They begged me for food as I walked by, but I tried to ignore them. One of the women stood up and followed me, begging me to buy her food in poor English.
She was very short, maybe no taller than 1,40m but despite being poor she wore a brightly colored sari. She had various pieces of jewellery seemingly stuck to the skin on her forehead, ears, neck and shouldders. There was a large burn wound on her left shoulder and it seemed as if the molten skin had gotten meshed with the fabric of her sari.
I tried to walk past her but she persisted. I really don't mind giving to beggars. I often do. And usually I favor giving food over money so her proposition sounded good. But the one thing I don't like is feeling like I'm being coerced, or forced into giving. This woman would not let me go.
"Supermarket," she said as she pointed to a location somewhere across the street. Again I tried to walk further but she blocked my path.
"Please, buy food. Supermarket." Again she pointed in the same direction but I couldn't see a supermarket from where we were standing.
I was prepared to just give her money so she would leave me alone. I said: "If I give you money, you can buy food at the supermarket."
"Nooo, cannot" she objected.
"Why not?"
"Not allowed." She shook her head while looking defeated.
At this point I realised this woman and the people with her must be Dalits, members of the lowest caste. Either the people at the supermarket would simply refuse her entrance, or they might accusing her of stealing any money she had to spend.
"Please. Buy rice," she continued. "You buy bag rice, I can feed my family one month." she said while reinforcingly holding up her index finger to emphasize the number one.
I hesitated for a moment but then decided that buying her some rice would be the easiest way to get rid of her. Besides, how much could a bag of rice cost?
"OK," I said and she smiled triumphantly, "let's go."
She led me across the street to a grayed colonial building and I had to do my best to keep up. She waded through the traffic with the power of someone very hungry who knows she can eat soon. The supermarket, called Sakahar Bandhar, was actually in the main entrance to the building, but it was concealed from view by large advertisements on the sidewalk.
She walked inside ahead of me to the rice aisle, almost commanding me to follow. I felt a bit silly. Once we were at the right aisle she walked to a stack of big rice bags and patted the top bag.
"This," she explained, "whole family eat for two month." Once again she emphasised the number by holding up two fingers. "Two month," she assured me.
I looked at the bags and saw that they were the top quality rice and cost 800 rupees per bag. A lot more than I was willing to spend.
"No, no, no," I said. "Too big." I searched the aisle for a bag that came closer to what I intended to donate. I found shelves with smaller bags and patted a bag of regular quality rice on the bottom shelf.
The woman hummed disapprovingly and patted a bag on the shelf above, which was as big as the one I was patting but again contained top quality rice. It seemed to me that if you need to beg for food, low quality rice is better than nothing. So I persisted and she gave in. She picked up the bag of rice and quickly made her way to the cash registers. I followed in tow.
At the register I received seemingly emotionless glances from the people in line and the nearby store personnel. The woman demonstratively put the bag of rice on the conveyor belt. I tried my best to seem completely comfortable with the situation.
A few minutes later I had paid for the rice. At the end of the cash register sat a store employee who examined the receipt given to him by the cashier clerk. The woman took her bag of rice and held it up for the clerk to see. He stamped the receipt and gave it to me.
"Keep," the woman said, pointing at the receipt. We reached the exit and she pointed to the man standing in the doorway. He scrutinized the receipt, looking incredulous at the woman with the bag of rice in her arm. Finally he put another stamp on my receipt and turned away from us.
We walked outside and I expected the woman to take off right away, but she walked along with me.
"Where you go now?"
"To Colaba," I said.
"She gestured down a road. "Go," she clarified. "Thank you."
I folded my hands and said "Namaskar". She simply nodded, then turned around and walked back to her family. I watched her cross the busy traffic on bare feet.

I took the road the woman pointed out to me, but didn't end up at the waterfront like I expected. Instead I came to a decidedly untouristly residential area. The ubiquitous crumbling houses and apartments were circled around a small marketplace. Several small streets led away from the marketplace further into the residential area. I thought I'd look around a bit and took out my camera.
I proceeded into one of the smaller streets. Some local teenagers were goofing around on a wooden horse cart parked on the side of the street. One of them called out to me: "Look out, sir!" and before I knew what was going on, two fighting street cats appeared in front of me, forming a hissing and screaming ball of fur as they do. As I stood there perplexed, the fur ball rolled away from me.
"Catfight," one of the teens commented, smiling at me.
A little further down the street stood a Chinese looking guy, a tourist like me, who had come to see what the ruckus was about. I walked over to him and asked him if he knew where we were and how to get to the Colaba waterfront, but he had gotten slightly lost himself.
We struck up a conversation and it turned out he was Chinese. I told him I speak a little Mandarin and he enthusiastically replied: "Oh, ni xiezi zhongwen!" but I couldn't formulate a fitting reply in Chinese fast enough so I just said "Yeah!" and laughed.
Together we left the residential area and backtracked a bit, coming back in tourist land where the sidewalks are filled with salespeople selling t-shirts and souvenirs. At an intersection we ran into two Australians who confirmed we were going the right way towards the waterfront.
The Chinese guy was staying int the dorm at the Salvation Army guesthouse. I curiously asked if he could show me his dorm. I wanted to see if it was as bad as everyone says.
He led me upstairs to the third floor of the building. A girl passed us on her way down, sporting a heavy backpack and two more bags, also heavy looking. She didn't seem to be very comfortable.
"Are you going to be okay?" I asked.
"Yes," she snapped at me, "I've been carrying this for four months so I think I'll be able to manage."
She continued down the stairs, moaning and cursing.
The dorm actually seemed pretty clean but the mattresses were absolutely worthless. My decision to get the 1000 rupee room was vindicated. "You do get free breakfast here, but it's not much" the Chinese guy added. "It's three slices of toast, an egg, one piece of fruit and a glass of milk."
It had become dark and I wanted to go back to my hotel. I asked him about his plans for tomorrow.
"Not sure, what about you?"
"Actually I was planning to go to Malabar Hill."
"What's to see there?" he asked.
"There's a few temples, the Hanging Gardens are there, and there's a Persian burial ground called the Tower of Silence" I summed up the points from the Lonely Planet.
We agreed to go together and decided on a place and time to meet in the morning.
"By the way," I said, "my name's Simon."
"My name is Yalong," he replied, "but my English name is Mike. You can call me that."
We shook hands. Most Chinese people I've had the pleasure of shaking hands with, had a very weak handshake. Not Mike though. Yowch.