The Great Ganesha

Today’s NYT is chock-full of articles about aamchi Mumbai. Well, not quite chock-full – that’s my Bombayite exaggeration surfacing – but there are two of them. Both pretty elaborate and interesting. Here’s a synop-analy-sis (remember – you heard this word here first!).

The First Article
The first is in the Travel Magazine (called T) by Alex Kuczynski. It talks about Bombay’s upper-crust, the top 1% which has over 99% of the city’s wealth*. The kind that goes clubbing, is dressed in high fashion and eats sushi at the exclusive Wasabi by Morimoto at the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower (called “the nexus for social life in Mumbai” by Kuczynski). For those who watch the Food Network – yes, it’s the same Iron Chef Morimoto.
*These statistics reflect the aforementioned Bombayite characterisitic of exaggerating and are not verified scientifically.

He starts off talking about a fashion show by perennial socialite and now-fashion designer*, Shobha De’s new line of saris, at the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower:
*Wtf? She’s a fashion designer now? Does she have no bounds on spending her spouse’s money? And on pure principle, I refuse to accent her name.

Some of the saris showed the crest of the buttocks, while others soared in potentially scandalous slits up the thigh. But there were no signs of protest from the crowd. This isn’t Delhi, where public outcry ensued after Richard Gere recently planted a public kiss on the actress Shilpa Shetty at a fund-raiser. This is Mumbai, the commercial and entertainment center of India and the country’s fastest-growing city, home to more and more millionaires and Maybachs and restaurants and nightclubs and strip bars and movie studios and immigrants and luxury-goods stores every day. And its citizens ? or some of the privileged ones, at least ? are eating it up, embracing the explosion of luxury culture. [link]

The money quote is from Shobha herself which, I have to (grudgingly) admit, is a good observation. Despite (or perhaps, because of) the fact that it’s made by someone who has put hobnobbing with Bombay’s elite under ‘S’ (for socialite) in the Bombay Yellow Pages.

After her fashion show, D? explained to me Mumbai’s social architecture. ?If you are in Delhi, it’s which minister you know,? she said. ?If you are in Chennai, it’s all about which caste you are. In Calcutta, it’s what your grandfather did. But in Mumbai, it’s not about that kind of rigid social structure any longer. It’s about what you have done.? She paused and added a thought: ?And it is a city that is very cruel to losers. It can be heartless to losers.? [link]

In case you’re wondering why I’m coming down on Shobha and her ilk, I’ll let Kuczynski answer that:

This is a city of almost unimaginable contradiction. It is home to more millionaires than any other city in India yet is also home to the largest slum in Asia. The ladies who lunch don’t speak of their philanthropic work to end the city’s abject poverty. ?There are simply too many suffering,? one socialite explained. ?So we focus on things we can actually have an impact on, like art and gardening.? [link]

With socialites like that, who needs social workers?

And, of course, no article about Bombay in any Western mainstream medium is complete without portraying the stark income inequality* that is becoming more and more a malady of the entire country (as I have mentioned earlier on this blog). In fact, the author spends a fair amount of time pontificating about the divide. Here’s a sampling:
*Can you really blame the Westerners though, when our socialites are so socially aware? Sorry, I’m still not over the last quote.

Directly behind the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower, a five-star property built in grand Victorian style in 1903, children bathe in a trash-filled rivulet that runs along the side of the street. (Nearly half the city’s population lacks running water or electricity.)

[...]

As the crowd started flailing to Blondie and KRS-One on the dance floor, Rajesh Mehrotra, who is in the import-export business, jabbed his finger at men around the room and recited net worths: $100 million. $300 million. $1 billion. ?We all own our own businesses,? Mehrotra said.

?So we party until 4. Then we go to work at 11.? [link]

Crawford Market – Outside and Inside

Kuczynski also gives an absolutely brilliant description of the auto-rickshaw, comparing it with Bombay and the balsa-wood infrastructure on which it is becoming an emerging world city. Of course, if you’re talking about a weak infrastructure, the rich-poor divide is a part of it.

The auto-rickshaw is a sublimely apt symbol for contemporary India, one that combines both the desire for progress and the dubious methods by which that progress is sought. Only here, in the most densely populated city in the world, would it have struck someone as a good idea to take an already unstable means of transport ? a seat with no seat belts, a platform with no doors, a steering wheel and windshield, all supported on three small wheels ? and add to it a powerful engine, enabling it to hurtle along a highway at up to 35 miles per hour… The city’s population has swollen at such a pace that it has overwhelmed its economic and physical infrastructures. India is emerging as a world player, while much of its society remains intensely spiritual and extremely poor. [link]

Wait a sec! “[E]xtremely poor” I agree with, but “intensely spiritual”? What the hell is that supposed to mean? See now, that’s the very reason I started this site – to dispel that stereotype.

The Second Article
Speaking of income inequality, the second article (in the Travel Section) is by Matt Gross. As the Frugal Traveler, he spends a weekend in Bombay on a budget of only $500 or 21,500 rupees. This article is more an entertaining description of the city, without any serious social commentary. It’s written more for the armchair tourist or potential Bombay visitor than anyone else. Still, this journo certainly has a conscience.

Let’s be honest: in a city like Mumbai, that’s a phenomenal amount, enough to sustain a backpacker for a month or one of the city’s seven million slum-dwellers for a year. The idea of blowing it all in 48 hours made my stomach queasy (no, it wasn’t the tap water), so I’d arranged to offset my indulgence with altruism: Sunday morning, I’d teach an English class for the Bombay Leprosy Project, a nonprofit group that helps victims of the disease. [link]

Due to circumstances beyond his control he doesn’t end up teaching there, but he does a bunch of touristy things over the course of the weekend, like going to a night-club (Priv?), eating at Trishna and even gets some shirts custom-tailored for himself (at Bombay Electric), amongst other things.

What struck me as strange was the fact that when he wanted a Gujarati thali he ended up going to some place called Golden Star instead of going to Rajdhani. Everyone knows that Rajdhani is the best thali in town. Disclosure: I’m biased towards Rajdhani, so don’t take this personally, Golden Star fans.

Also, neither of them go to the Mohammed Ali Road-Bhendi Bazaar-Chor Bazaar section of town (although they do both go to the infamous Falkland Road). For one thing, they miss out on the food. And another, they miss out on an entire sub-section of the population.

These Amreekan journos need to brush up on their research and/or contacts, I’m tellin’ ya.

Check out the two articles and their respective slideshows.

Update: Matt Gross emailed me and justified his visiting Golden Star over Rajdhani.

I would’ve loved to go to Rajdhani over Golden Star, but (1) I wanted to see where a taxi driver would take me based on my request, and (2) I’d heard Rajdhani (which is right around the corner, yeah?) can be too packed to bear. Plus, I figured everyone was already writing about Rajdhani, so who needs me to do so as well?

Makes perfect sense, Matt. Also, like I said, I’m biased and loyal to Rajdhani but I have (admittedly) heard good things about Golden Star.

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