Backup Plan = Goa

In these trying economic times we should all be prepared for the unexpected and have a backup plan (a second best professional alternative should the axe fall). My backup plan is an indescribably beautiful tropical paradise called Goa. Profession yet to be determined, but I am thinking Tom Cruise Cocktail-style bartender, or surf-instructor.

Goa is amazing. By visiting on my final weekend here, I truly left the best of India for last. Goa has miles and miles of beautiful sun-drenched sandy beaches, each beach with its own name and character. I spent my time at Calangute, one of Goa's busiest beaches, and Arambol, one of Goa's least trafficed beaches and had pleasant experiences at both. While the sun and surf are amazingly relaxing, it is nonetheless impossible to escape completely from India's determined entrepreneurs. Vendors tramp up and down even the most secluded beaches hawking souvenirs, fruit, massages, and even ear cleaning services. I overpaid for cheap sourvenirs but passed on the other services, particularly the ear cleaning, which I am pretty sure is a pick-pocket scam. The more organized commercial establishments are the beach huts which offer chair rentals and food. The more ambitious of the huts turn into bars and dance-clubs at night, providing the basis for a 24-hour scene.

In addition to some spectacular beaches Goa also offers up a dose of history and culture among the impressive churches of Old Goa, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Though the classical architecture seems a little out of place among the palm trees and tropical verdure, it somehow works with the overall easy going culture of the place.

Appropriate to its history as a Portuguese trading colony, Goa is a place where East meets West and generally the good parts of each have been retained. Goa is relatively uncrowded, relaxing and clean. But at the same time Goa teems with the same vitality and emotion that so embodies India. I'd recommend a trip to Goa to anyone and if the economy continues is steady slide into the abyss, I'll see you at the bar.

My 20 Million Neighbors

Mumbai is crowded. It was my first impressions when I arrived and spent two hours slogging 7 miles through traffic to get to my guesthouse and will most likely be my last impression when I depart.

First the facts: The island city of Mumbai has a population of 13 million people packed into an area of 25 square miles. If you include greater Mumbai the population number rises to 20 million. By comparison Manhattan has 1.6 million people living in an area of 23 square miles. Mumbai is almost 10 times as densely populated in what is essentially a horizontal city. In fact at nearly half a million people per square mile, Mumbai is by far the world’s most densely populated city. (source: Wikipedia) Manhattanites imagine being surrounded by ten times as many people in everything you do, then role back the infrastructure development and standard of living by about 65 years. Voila, you have Mumbai.

The experience of living in Mumbai means dealing with too many people in too small of an area everyday and in every facet of one’s life. The traffic is horrible, the trains are incredibly crowded (see forthcoming post), the rents are astronomical, and even walking down the street becomes a major chore.

A walk down any street in Mumbai means dodging people, cars, and construction rumble. At one point someone had the good sense to build sidewalks but they range from packed to totally usable. On the main thoroughfares hawkers set up their stalls selling clothes, refurbished mobile phones and pirated DVDs, effectively reducing the sidewalk to half its intended width. On the shady side streets near my office the side-walks are inaccessible at times, blocked by double parked cars and impassible at other times with sleeping people, construction refuse, and even sewage leaks barring the way. Getting on the sidewalk is like entering in a maze, you may be able to get to the end, but more likely than not you’ll hit a dead end and be forced to back-track. So that leaves just the street with its honking taxi’s rushing by. A total lack of directional discipline by fellow pedestrians exacerbates the mess.

So how did Mumbai get here? Before the Brits set up a trading post, Mumbai was essentially uninhabited. As always happens, economic opportunity drives increasing immigration and with no effective controls on population people just keep poring in. Mumbai is also an infrastructure and urban planning disaster (a topic for another post) which compresses the population mass into a few small corridors and limits vertical expansion, leading to a much higher effective density. Imagine! Hence, crowded it is and crowded it will remain until either Mumbai looses its luster as the preferred immigration destination for India's masses or the government takes comprehensive action to address the problem. The good news is that you won't hear me whining about crowded highways, T-cars, restaurants, theater or sidewalks in the U.S, because in comparison to Mumbai it is a walk in the park

Mughal Magnificence

Most people think of India as a Hindu country, and in fact 80% of the population are Hindus. But for nearly 500 years before the Brits took over, Muslims ran the show, reigning over most of northern Indian and parts of southern India. Perhaps the most impressive dynasty was the Mughals who from their capitals in Agra and Delhi ruled northern India from 1556 to 1707. The Mughals ushered in a period of relative peace and prosperity and under their tutelage art and trade flourished.

Fortunately for the world, their favorite hobby was building elaborate tombs in which to bury their loved ones and on which they could inscribe the Quran (Koran). For those of you who are not religious scholars, the Quran is pretty long, 30 books in total, so if you are going to inscribe it on a monument, it has to be a big monument. Needless to say they rose to the challenge, building Humayun’s Tomb, Akbar’s Tomb and the Taj Mahal. Before lending their names to these mausoleums the emperors liked to live the high life and built lavish palaces inside their fortified cities at the Red Fort and the Agra Fort.

The main contributor to Delhi and Agra’s embarrassment of architectural riches was Shah Jahan who built the palaces of the Agra Fort and the Taj Mahal, before moving his capital to Dehli where he built the Red Fort and the Jama Masjid. In so doing Shah Jahan depleted the imperial treasury and opened the door to his usurping son Aurangzeb, who imprisoned Shah Jahan in the Agra Fort.

Aurangzeb’s ascension was the beginning of the end of Mughal power. In an instructive tale, one still not appreciated by much of the Muslim world, Aurangzeb’s turn towards fundamentalism brought about the end of the Mughal empire, as Hindu’s rebelled against special taxes on non-Muslims and embraced local leaders who formed break-away states. This politically fractured India would prove to be an easy target for European colonization and eventually British control in the 19th and 20th century.

While there are mixed opinions about the effect of Mughal rule on India, and India’s Hindus and Muslims don’t always get along, the Mughal’s incredible architectural legacy and particularly the Taj Mahal has been embraced by all as an important part of India’s cultural identity.

Alibaug, Kashid Beach and Cricket

This weekend I went to Alibaug, a town a short ferry ride from Mumbai, which is the jumping off point for weekend beach trips outside the city. Alibaug itself is a dusty junction with cheap hotels, suspicious looking restaurants, and an endless number of generic shops selling the same dozen convenience store items. The guidebook said that Alibaug is popular among Bollywood stars and Mumbai’s wealthy, but our fellow passengers on the ferry ride over resembled neither.

From Alibaug, my friend Benjamin and I set out in a rickshaw taxi for Kashid Beach, which was reputed to be among the nicest and least crowded options available. When we arrived we found that Kashid was far from undiscovered, it was teeming with Indians. We had clearly found our way to the locals beach. Most of the men were playing cricket, volleyball or soccer while the women strolled along, took dips in the sea or sat back in the shade. Far from the Bollywood stars in bikinis, the women of Kashid beach were mostly generously proportioned older women going swimming, fully clothed in their saris.

Still after an hour long rickshaw ride we were determined to make the most of it. We found a spot to set up our towels and were immediately beset by a pack of 15 Indians inquiring where we were from and wanting to have pictures taken with us. We humored our new admirers. By far the funniest part of the exchange was when an incredibly dark Indian fellow asked to see our sunscreen and began applying it apprehensively. He was far beyond any SPF rating known to man, but it was definitely amusing.

We shortly found ourselves in the middle of a cricket game with our towels directly behind the bowler (pitcher). While the risk of come-backers in cricket is relatively low we still decided to move. Cricket games continued to pop up around. I am pretty sure were acting as the home run boundary for our next game, “If you hit it past the white guys it’s a six (homerun)”. After many a ball bounced near us we decided to try our hand at India’s national pastime. The nearby game was happy to give a few turns at bat. I connected for two sixes, as well as whiffing a couple of times. The pitching is much lower than baseball so you have to take a more looping swing at it. Net-net I am not likely to have a career as a professional cricketer.

Alibaug was definitely not what we expected but was fun nonetheless.

The Great Mosquito Hunt

India is a country steeped in ritual. Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Parsis, Sikhs, and Jains each have their own set rites and rituals that dictate the rhythm of life in India.

In keeping with the character of the country my life has taken on a sort of ritual rhythm as well, of a more secular and pragmatic nature. Foremost among these rituals is the Great Mosquito Hunt. The Great Mosquito Hunt takes place every night at about 2am. Having gone to sleep around midnight it is usually about one to two hours before the half dozen freshly inflicted welts wake me from my slumber. I wake up scratching an arm, back, or neck and cursing my winged assailants.

Now begins the hunt. The lights come on and the search begins. I scour the walls of my meager dormitory, littered with the remnants of hunts past. Sometimes a flying a silhouette catches my eye, and I track the beast till it alights on a curtain, wall or piece of furniture. Then the age old conflict of man versus bug draws to a climax. With speed and precision I dispatch my quarry and peace is again restored, the hunt concluded.

Mosquitoes are a serious problem in India, given that they can and often do carry Malaria. Travelers like me can take anti-malaria medications, but locals not so. One of my colleagues, an Indian women who went to Wharton, was out for a month with Malaria, totally not cool. Government attempts at large-scale mosquito eradication have meet with the same fate as most government projects in India, total failure. Technology and enterprise have stepped in with solutions to the mosquito problem including a product called Godrej GoodNight, which is manufactured by the parent company that I work for. GoodNight is a low dose pesticide in liquid form which is released with heat generated by a unit that plugs into the wall, sort of a citronella candle on steroids. Alas, the unit in my room has been totally ineffective in keeping the bugs away. Maybe I have a dud, maybe the mosquitoes have grown immune. Whatever the case may be it appears that for the next month the Great Mosquito Hunt will continue to be a part of my India ritual.