May 28, 1998
Hi From Bombay,
Today Pakistan tested three nuclear bombs. How incredible this whole mess! The arms race between the USSR and the U.S. in the 70s and 80s was bad, but at least the two countries were rich superpowers, though both countries should have thought of better ways to spend the money. What a tragedy when developing countries that can’t even feed or house all its citizens properly or provide uniform access to roads, transportation, communication, basic infrastructure and services, spend time and money building and testing nuclear bombs. I’m also stunned that what we read in the local press is how the Indian leadership sees building nuclear bombs as good for its citizens, providing them security. Many citizens of India resent the west and especially the U.S. for wanting them to stop the build-up. Help me understand this. How does moving these two nations closer to conflict provide security? How does depriving citizens of funds for infrastructure and development provide security? I understand that U.S. policy has its share of contradiction and hypocrisy. Still, we have learned (I hope) what a fruitless resource drain an arms race is. A tragedy that these two countries, formerly one, are at each others throats. A few weeks ago I heard about a form on which the person had listed Karachi (in modern Pakistan) as his birth place, and “Undivided India” as nation of birth. Poignant and sad!
We are experiencing very little of this bomb situation here in Bombay with one exception. Some of the more nationalist Hindu groups have chosen what I consider an odd way of protesting U.S. sanctions and what they see as U.S. imperialism. They attack Coke and Pepsi! The paper published pictures of jubilant, smiling people standing around sewers, emptying bottles of both soft drinks. Also, local activists ransacked and even burned several Pepsi or Coke delivery trucks. An odd switch from burning the flag, eh? Kind of makes me want to laugh, or possibly cry, or maybe feel a little sheepish that corporate icons like Pepsi and Coke represent my country. I think I’d prefer flag burnings. The ultimate irony is that Indian soft-drink bottlers, truck drivers, and franchise holders suffer the most from such attacks!
On Monday we celebrated Memorial Day. I was off work, but the children were not off school. We heard it was hard to convince the school to even take Thanksgiving off, let alone Memorial Day. Though it is the American school, most of the students are Korean, Japanese and assorted European. Our three felt a burst of patriotism early Monday morning (commendable) wanting to stay home from school to commemorate the holiday. The semester is nearly finished and anyway, they had exams that day so off to school they went. And off on a nice date went my wife and me. Our driver, Hasmukh, picked us up at 10:00. First, we went to Crawford Market. Wow! It is hard to capture all the color and interest of the place in words. A lot of what’s sold there is fruit and vegetables. The sellers work hard to get you to buy. With all the competition, even an obviously non-Indian like me gets a fairly decent price. Of course we bought nothing there; that’s Patsy’s job. Plus, she pays one fourth what the sellers would charge us.
Right now is mango season and oh are they plentiful and beautiful. I was also amazed at the spice stalls. Spice wallahs sell jars of aromatic powders and herbs you can either buy straight or have mixed to your own specifications. Every cook, every mother, every auntie, grandmother and cousin-brother has his or her own masala (spice mixture) recipe and probably many varying mixtures for different dishes. Also at Crawford Market a person can get dishes, suitcases, toilet paper, Kraft salad dressing, nuts, chicken and other freshly slaughtered meats, candy, baked goods, plastic goods, Kelloggs Corn Flakes, …get the picture? Paraphrasing Arlo Guthrie, you can get anything you want at Crawford Market. Also, the place is old. Rudyard Kipling’s father even designed some of the carvings and one of the fountains.
From there we explored other places and ended up at the Gateway of India and the Taj Mahal hotel. As we were filming the Gateway of India, a prominent tourist destination that looks a little, in size and basic shape, like the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, a cute, dirty, ragged and forward girl walked up to me and said, “Hello, hello, hello!” Here is how the dialogue between us went:
Girl: Hello, what’s your name? (I ignored her for awhile, but she persisted, so I answered)
Me: Mr Sahib (pronounced saab, like the car). What’s your name?
Girl: Adjitya. What’s her (pointing at my wife) name?
Me: Mrs. Memsahib.
Girl: What country are you from?
Me: America. What country are you from?
Girl: Bombay. I work here.
Me: What work do you do?
Girl: I beg.
Me: Where is your mother and your father?
Girl: They died.
At that point we went past her boundary and into the hotel. I felt bad and guilty for being relieved to be away from her. Interactions like that are uncomfortable and make me feel so ambivalent. The common wisdom is that you don’t give beggars money. We’re still following that, though it feels bad to ignore a begging child.
We had lunch at a jazz restaurant with good food and nice atmosphere. Very upper class Indian, expatriate oriented; very, very trendy. Total cost for the two of us? Around $8.00. Classy places for lunch in D.C. could cost two people $40 or $50. Even normal places could cost $8 per person!
‘Till next time…
