Mobbed by Poverty: Mumbai, India

            I woke up much earlier today than I usually do. I’m supposed to escort a guided tour of Mumbai, India. We are going to see something called the Jain Temple and also the Gandhi and Prince of Wales Museum. After getting the eager passengers off the boat, we herd them into these buses that are hot and have a nasty body odor smell. Once we got everyone in, we started the bus (and the A/C) and headed out.

            At the front of the bus we had a tour guide who spoke through a microphone over the loudspeakers. His accent was very thick and the speakers in the bus were of low quality. It was almost impossible to hear what he was saying so I just tuned out and looked out the window at the city as it cruised by.

            The city seemed chaotic as the traffic here seemed to have no enforced rules. Cars bumped into each other and randomly stopped and people got out, holding up everyone behind him while they blared their horns. It was an automotive headache. The chaos wasn’t just in the traffic either. You would have someone walking a cow along the sidewalk shitting as it waddled along. And the people on the street were always looking for some angle to rip off some ignorant sucker walking past.

            Beyond the chaos, the buildings were something of interest in the city. Some of them were very old dating back to the seventeen hundreds and they were built in the gothic style. Huge arches and gargoyles over looked the busy streets like a warlord looking down from his tower onto his minions. Being as old as they were, they were still in excellent shape. Usually the buildings were being used for important purposes such as a hospital, museum, college and government buildings. However you would occasionally see a Bebe store inside one or it being used as a 4 star hotel.

            After driving for a about 45min, we reached a minor pit stop on the way. We stopped at Mumbai’s Hanging Garden. As soon as we got off the bus, we were ambushed by locals trying to sell us things. Post cards, world maps, key chains, refrigerator magnets and other worthless junk. The currency in India, the Rupee, is fairly weak in comparison to the US dollar (being at the time around 50 Rupee to 1 USD). So everything they tried to sell us was fairly cheap ranging anywhere from one to seven American dollars. Some of the other passengers on this tour were interested in the junk so they bought it. I had no intention on giving them any attention.

            These merchants were persistent however and they followed us ever step of the short walk around the garden. They would literally shove post cards in your face and try to sell you them for a dollar. If you told them no, they had no problem giving you a sob story that was suppose to make you feel bad and they would say only a dollar would help. For other passengers, this made them feel guilty and they would buy something from them of at least give a small donation. I however held my ground and refused some disease ridden peacock feather hand fan that they tried to sell me for five dollars.

            The garden its self was so-so. It had some nice flowers and very open lawn areas but nothing jaw dropping. We walked about 100 yards until we turned out of the garden and across the street where the bus was parked and walked to a look out. The look out was probably the best part of the garden. It overlooked most of the city and also the beach. On our way back to the bus, we were ambushed once again by the street merchants trying to give their final deals as we piled back onto the bus.

            We drove just a few more minutes to the Jain Temple. Jain is a religion that has roots in Hinduism and is practiced widely here in India. We were warned that we were not actually allowed to go inside the temple but were allowed to see the outside of it. We walked over to the temple where people were praying and giving donations into a wooden box and then ringing a bronze bell above it when they finished. The temple itself was colorfully decorated with hand carved deities. There were a lot of people coming in and out of the temple and I felt as if we were getting in their way. I tried to be conscious of where I was standing at all times, but they were coming out of all directions and it was no use. We stayed at the Temple for about 25 minutes and then we headed back to the bus.

            We drove just a few short minutes to the Gandhi Museum. The Museum in short was a tourist trap. The building had a few floors of old pictures and copies of letters he wrote; not even the originals. The top floor had dioramas that depicted major events in Gandhi’s life. If anything they were creepy if not just plain boring. I made my way through the floors quickly as I found myself starting to get bored. One thing of particular interest I found was a typed letter from Gandhi to Adolf Hitler saying that Adolf was the only person in the world who could stop the war. It was a moving letter and thought it was probably the best piece in the whole museum. After the passengers had seen enough, we loaded up the bus once again.

            Our next stop was at the Gateway Of India, which is a giant archway that overlooks the harbor in Mumbai. Next to it was the famed Taj Mahal Hotel. Getting off the bus, were literally mobbed by dozens of beggars and street merchants, dying to get a dollar out of us. A young woman approached me and tried to sell me her flower jasmine bracelets. I told her politely that I was not interested. She then shoved the flowers up to my nose and insisted that I smelled them. I took the flowers from her hand and smelled them. I told her that they smelled very nice but I was not interested. The group was walking towards the Gateway Of India and all these people were following our group. I looked back and almost everyone in our tour had someone heckling them to buy something or at least looking for a handout.

            We pressed on and still this woman would not let me go. Finally she grabbed my arm and tied the flower bracelet to my hand. I told her “No!” and I tried to resist her from putting it on me. She blocked my other hand that was coming over to stop her and she tied the final knot of the bracelet to my hand. I looked at her and told her in a stern voice that I didn’t want the bracelet and I tried to take it off of my hand, but she pushed my other hand away. I realized she wasn’t going to let me take it off. So I decided that I was going to just walk off and see what happens.

            Well she followed me for awhile and basically stalked me. Every once in a while she would come over and beg some more and ask for just a dollar. She would say things like “You’re so rich, and I’m very poor. Please sir, just a dollar! My baby is hungry, we need to eat. Please sir anything!” I knew better than to give in. We hear on the cruise ships all the time how these women’s babies aren’t even theirs. They steal babies and use them to get tourists to feel bad so they give them money. I finally told her to go bother someone else. It was getting very annoying.

            The tour guide showed us the Gateway of India and I snapped a few photos while a few more merchants approached me trying to sell me postcards, my photo in front of the arch and weirdly enough, a giant over sized balloon that I wasn’t sure had any significance to the arch, or India at all.

            As we walked back to the bus, the woman was still following me; giving me the same lines as before. She would put her fingers together and put them towards her open mouth as to indicate that she was hungry and wanted money for food. I told her to please leave me alone and go bother someone else because I wasn’t going to give her any money. We made it back to where the bus was supposed to be parked but it wasn’t there. It decided to take a trip around the block I guess. So we were stuck waiting on the curb with all these people begging for money and /or trying to sell you worthless crap. The woman then tugged on my sleeve and pointed to the family sitting on a blanket where 2 toddler children were sitting. She told me that was her baby and she needs to feed her baby. I once again politely refused

            The bus finally arrived and we packed the bus as fast as we could. All of the passengers were fed up with the onslaught poor beggars nipping at our heels every step of the way. The bus started up and we moved on to the last stop, which was the Prince of Wales Museum. The museum was actually a collection of different museums such as a natural history, paintings and sculptures museum. The guide announced before we got there that if we wanted to take pictures, there was a $17 dollar fee and to take video, would be a $25 dollar fee. On top of that, he mentioned that there was no air conditioning in the museum. Needless to say the passengers were not happy. As the day had pressed on, the temperature outside was getting hotter and hotter till the bus, even with the A/C blasting, was getting too warm for comfort. When the passengers heard that the museum had no A/C I could hear all the comments from the backseat where I was sitting. They said that if they had known that there was no A/C, they would have not come. They blamed it on the company saying that they should have told them before hand.

            Either way most of the people got off the bus anyway and checked out the museum. The building its self was massive and again, influenced by gothic architecture. I snapped a few photos and went inside. We checked out the sculpture museum first which had the Hindu deities depicted in stone with a small description below them. They were interesting but I once again found myself getting bored and at this point tired. I saw all the sculptures in about 10 minutes, as there were not a lot of them in this museum. I walked about the Natural History museum for a bit before I headed back to join the rest of the group. We moved our way back to the bus where, once again there was a small army of beggars and vendors trying to get money out of us. Getting back to the bus, we had to literally use our arms to push the beggars out of our way so we could make our way back to the bus. We quickly stepped into our bus and headed back to the ship.

            On the way back I found myself exhausted. I really didn’t do all that much walking but what I figured it probably was, was a combination of heat outside, and also the constant fighting off of beggars and merchants. Their constant pestering and ploys and schemes make you on constant alert and on edge. You have to watch them to make sure they aren’t planning to scam you or rob you. It was exhausting to maintain that type of alertness. I felt like if maybe they were less aggressive, perhaps I would have been more inclined to give them something or even buy some stupid knick-knack to help. Their aggressiveness however is too much and I find myself getting really annoyed and even angry with them.

            This city has so much potential to be a really great city but the poverty is eating itself from the inside out. The money generated in this city is not being distributed evenly and it is causing distress where as a one-day spectator like myself, found it smears its charms and makes it look like two hungry savage dogs, fighting for a left over dinner bone.                 -DB

Jain Temple.

Jain Temple.

JAin Temple.

Jain Temple.

Jain Temple.

Dioramas at the Gandhi Museum.

Prince of Wales Museum.

Prince of Wales Museum.

Prince of Wales Museum.

Prince of Wales Museum.