Posts Tagged ‘Mumbai’

This video marks the start of a new feature on BreatheDreamGo: Video Friday. Every Friday I will upload a video from my travels in India (or other entertaining videos I come across).

I took this video after getting into an autorickshaw at Bandra train station in Mumbai. Look for the near collision at 1:42!

Chowpatty Beach, Mumbai, at sunset

I arrived in Mumbai (Bombay) badly. I bought a ticket in Goa for an overnight “luxury” bus from Madgao to Bandra, leaving at 8 pm. Instead, I was bussed from Madgao to Panjim, shifted to a dirty, run-down bus that left at 10 pm and told the bus would not stop at Bandra after all. No explanation given. Read the rest of this entry »

My India list: top places, events and festivals I want to see

I believe in magic. How else can you explain that the more I travel in India, the longer the list of places I want to go gets?! I was inspired to write this list by Mighty Girl’s Mighty Life List, so here goes. Here’s my list at the time of this writing (and I am sure I am missing several things …):

Top 10

1. see sunrise over the Himalayas from Tiger Hill, near Darjeeling
2. watch the start of the monsoon in Trivandrum
3. attend the Pushkar Camel Festival
4. climb Mount Arunachala
5. see a tiger! — perhaps in Kanha National Park, the place that inspired Kipling to write Jungle Book
6. Read the rest of this entry »

Published on The Matador Network, August 2009.

Photo courtesy of Jehangir Pocha

While the majority of foreign tourists travel to India in the winter, there are some who like it hot! India is a popular summer destination for European vacationers, monsoon lovers and travelers who like to swim against the stream. There are lots of good reasons for visiting India in the summer, including the profusion of summer festivals, breathtaking summer-only destinations in the Himalayas, un-crowded tourist attractions, cheaper airfares and slashed rates at many hotels and resorts.

Here are 11 things you can only do in the summer in India:

1. Eat mangoes. Early summer, before the monsoon arrives, is the hottest time of year in India. The only relief comes in the form of a sweet and succulent fruit, welcomed and revered from one end of the country to the other. In India, the mango is the “king of fruit.” Mangoes begin to trickle into markets and restaurants in April and by June the streets are full of people savouring their “utterly overpowering lusciousness,” as one mango lover said. While there are many varieties, the Alphonso is hailed as the “king of kings,” and its seasonal appearance makes the news.

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Just before the news broke about the terror attacks in Mumbai, I was going to write about my favourite Indian books and books about India. Ironically, one of my top picks is Maximum City by Suketu Mehta, an incredibly well-researched and well-written book about Bombay. Having recently read that book, I felt much more in-the-know about the city, and especially the local politics. Which are very tricky.

So, here are some of my favourite books on India, about India, by Indians …

1. Maximum City by Suketu Mehta. He’s like a cross between Charles Dickens and The New York Times. He’s a great investigative reporter, but his real strength is in telling a story and making the characters come alive. If you have any interest at all in Bombay / Mumbai, read this book.

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As I write this, police, hotel staff and and various specialists are combing through the wreckage of the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in Mumbai looking for casualties, evidence, survivors and possibly terrorists in hiding. There have been so many shocking images coming out of Mumbai over the last three days. Bloodied bodies. Flames and smoke billowing from an historic and important landmark. Survivors climbing down drain pipes. Paratroopers repelling down ropes onto the roof of Nariman House.

I found the most chilling image to be that of a smiling young gunman, toting an AK-47, as he goes on his murderous rampage. His smile seems so out of place, so remorseless, so certain. It’s the terrorists’ certainty that scares me, more than anything else. That certainty springs from a mindset deeply rooted in the dualistic notion of right and wrong.

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I am writing this from the comfort of my quiet home in Canada. My cat is curled up beside me, purring, the heat and electricity are running, I have food in the ‘fridge, I can hear the heavy steel-on-sreel rattle of the street car. The world outside my window seems to be safe, predictable and ordered.

But my mind is not here. My thoughts and feelings are tied up with the chaos and terror in Mumbai. Bombay. I have never been to the city, though I had plans to visit this winter. I don’t really know anyone there, except the India Tourism officer who was posted there after leaving Toronto last year. But friends of friends are there, relatives of friends, bloggers whose sites I have visited, who knows who else. The world is indeed a small place.

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Karmabhoomi, definition: the land of your destiny.

I came across this most excellent word while reading Maximum City by Suketu Mehta. The book is about Bombay (Mumbai) and the word is used by a (real) character, a 17-year-old poet who lives on the footpath. He left his village to live hard in sin city because Bombay inspires him. He’s a gentle soul living a brutal life and finding beauty in the daily struggles of a bursting megalopolis.

“Why do you live here,” Suketu understandably wonders. “Because this is my karmabhoomi,” our hero replies. “The land of my destiny.”

I know exactly how he feels. Except he has more courage than me. I feel that India is the land of my karmabhoomi – but I have not yet left my comfortable life in the middle-class bubble of North America to go and live my destiny.

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