Bye Bye Bombay

We are making the long trip west to New York tonight, while two flights with nearly 17 hours of flight time is far from appealing at least I can look forward to the attractive and gracious crew on Etihed airlines. I am old fashion when it comes to flying, I still dress up, I expect my food to reflect the region that I am traveling to and to be woken up after a long flight with latte and hot towel. It is these last little luxuries that I require before arriving in places like India.


So long Bombay, my adoptive country by marriage. When I was a child I am not too sure how I imagined my life but I am pretty sure it did not entail going living in India and returning there every few years. The country and more specifically the city is one that I love to hate, as city who’s faults and flaws make her equally as exasperating as they do lovable.


Goodbye to the heat and humidity that peals the paint from walls and leaves the city and its people sweetly sticky. Goodbye to the pungent air, a mixture of exhaust, manufacturing and incense, where religion and industry mix. Goodbye to the noise, the chorus of a thousand cars honking, the singsong voice of the bread man, the constant high pitched complaints of the upper class housewives. Goodbye to the decadence and the despair, of luxury cars parked next to sleeping street children. Goodbye to 3 bucket showers a day in lukewarm water. Goodbye to lazy street dogs that seem harmless enough during the day but should be avoided at al costs at night. Goodbye to the idols placed tenderly and with care in every shop, home, even seemingly at random on the street reminding me that at its heart India is a deeply spiritual place. Goodbye to the wide eyed foreigners wandering Colaba causeway, I was like you once overwhelmed by the all the tastes, sounds, smells and humanity of the city, for better or worse a city like no other in the world a city that sinks into your pores and draws you back.