What a Night

Every now and then, if you are lucky, you will have one of those nights which is just perfect.  Magical.  I have been fortunate enough to have a few of those nights in the last year, and last Friday, February 11th, is on that list.

At 4:00, Elaine and I headed off to the Coconut Corner to meet up with a few VJTI students who invited us to the Kala Ghoda Art Festival (http://kalaghodaassociation.com/).  Not knowing exactly where we were going nor how we were getting there nor what we would do there did not concern us at all; we were just super excited to make some new friends.  This was our first time hanging out with students outside of a school setting.  Besides, there was a good chance that they would show us some new delicious food.

So where was it?  Kala Ghoda, duh!  =)  Kala Ghoda is a district in Southern Mumbai, about 20 minutes away from Matunga (my area).  Sounds like a good time to try out the train!

Yep, I did it.  I rode on a train in India and have lived to tell the tale.  If you know anything about the train system in India, you have probably heard that it is one of the best train systems in India, but the trains are VERY crowded, and can be dangerous.  Fights always break out, people ride on top of the train, people hang out of the trains... For those reasons, is not uncommon to hear of deaths on the trains.  Not to mention, they are so crowded and people have to push their way through the crowd, so pickpocketing is also common.  In fact, just yesterday I was talking with a student who wanted to wait a few hours before going home on the train; he didn't want to go home during the peak hour simply because he had his laptop with him.  These are all the things I heard before going on the train.  And I was super excited.

I'm on a train!

To be honest, it was neither scary nor crowded.  We got on the train a little bit before 5:00, so it was before peak hours, and we were also going the opposite direction of most people coming home from work/school.  So how crowded was it?  Well, let me put it this way- I got a seat.  It reminded me a lot of the NYC or Philadelphia subways, except many more cars in each train.  And open doors.  On the ride there, we discussed different places to visit in India, the series of events that brought Elaine and I to India, and differences between American and Indian families.  Indian families are very close.  There is a lot more respect and obedience in Indian families than in American families.  Kids will, for the most part, listen to their parents without talking back just out of respect.  Rajiv always tells me stories about people who gave up job offers and great opportunities simply because their parents said no.  No talking back, no trying to reason with them, just acceptance and obedience.  Another girl I met last week said that her parents gave her the option to have a love marriage rather than an arranged marriage, but she wants to have an arranged marriage because she trusts their judgement more than her own.  Crazy.  Having said that, these kids I was with were rebels.  They told me that they talk back and fight with their parents some, but honestly, what they were telling me does not compare at all to kids in America.  Mom, Dad, sorry for being such a rebel.  =)

Have you guys seen Slumdog Millionaire?  You know that dance sequence at the end, in the train station?  That was where we got off, Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminal.  Yep, I walked where they filmed Jai Ho.  It was also the site of the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks, but let's just focus on the dancing part.

After we exited the terminal, I noticed something shocking.  It was EXTREMELY touristy.  There was approximately 1 foreigner for every 200 Indians.  Okay, maybe that doesn't sound very touristy, but I have been staying in Matunga, which is not a tourist spot at all.  Since I have been in India (one and a half months), I have seen 7 other white people in Matunga.  And that includes Elaine.  This area felt touristy for other reasons as well.  A lot of the buildings were built by the English, so they didn't look as Indian as some of the other architecture I have seen here.  It had more of a London-y feel to it.  Also, a lot of the street vendors knew English, in addition to other languages, simply because tourists are their primary clientele.  But we did not stay on the main streets that much.  Within a few minutes, we were entering the art festival.


There were a lot of people there.  Think of Manhattan on New Year's Eve.  When we first entered, there were various sculptures and large pieces of art.  A robot made out of old electronics.  A foam body covered with needles with questions like, "Why am I here?" written all over it.  A painted cow.  And then there were also some live art as well, such as people in costumes.  This one dude was dressed in colorful attire with a fake horse attached to him.  One woman was dressed in all red, standing on a cart, and was being pushed around by a few men.  So far, the first 100 feet of the festival were pretty cool.

Punjabi Dancers

Moving a little bit further into the festival, we came to a stage where a dance was finishing up.  We decided to wait and see what dancers came out next.  Male Punjabi dancers.  Wow.  To one side of the stage, there were 6 people playing instruments (bongos, flutes, etc).  There were 8 dancers on stage and they just would not stop smiling.  Then again, if I were dressed in those colors, I would probably be all smiles too.  Their dance was simple, but fun.  It was honestly a pleasure to watch.  Now if anyone back home can teach me some Punjabi dances, I would be much obliged.

Beautiful, isn't it?

After the dance finished up, we kept walking through the fair.  The street was about 40 yards across, and each side was lined with different stalls.  The artists themselves came to the festival to sell their products, which allows them to sell things at lower prices.  One exhibition from Orissa fascinated me.  There were these things called talapatrachitras- palm leaf etchings.  Basically, the artist takes a bunch of strips of palm leaves, etches a picture into it with a nail, and then pours some sort of ink on the leaves, which gets absorbed by the part of the leaf that he etched away.  Then he ties all of these strips together into an accordian-style piece of art.  How do I know?  The artist was there and did a demonstration for me.  I honestly spent a good 40 minutes in that little tent, admiring all of the beautiful artwork and learning a little bit about the different pictures.  Most pieces of art depicted the Hindu gods, especially Vishnu, Ganesh, and Radha Krishna.  I bought a long talapatrachitra depicting the story of the first avatar of Vishnu.  It is beautiful.  Right when I was about to leave, he pulled out a few more pieces of art.  These were paintings on thin cloths.  Now, the paint is all natural paint.  The dyes are all extracted from fruits, vegetables, and, get this, even the ocean.  How cool is that?  The blue dye is extracted from the ocean.  Now if only they could figure out how to extract the fluffiness from clouds...

All etched by hand on a palm leaf.  The entire piece is about 4 feet long.

When I finished obsessing over the Orissan art, we decided to hit up the food stands.  I have no idea what we ate, but it was delicious.  Delicious.  I did not realize how hungry I was until I started eating, but fortunately the four different things we got appeased my appetite.  Another cool thing about India is that everyone shares.  Six people, four items, two spoons.  Love it.  After we devoured the food, we moved onto the next thing: we went to the National Gallery of Modern Art to see a play called Crystal Anniversary.  The theatre could not seat more than 150 people, and all of the seats were plastic picnic chairs.  The play was one act, one hour, 7 actors, and spoken primarily in English with some Hindi sprinkled throughout (aka, Hinglish).  It was very good, very funny, and had an interesting storyline.  It took place on the night before a married couple's 15 year anniversary, and they were going through a very rough patch in their life.  The husband was an actor/director, working with a new, young female talet (sorry, talent), whereas his wife, who was a fantastic singer back in the day, no longer sang but was instead forced to run a performing arts school.  The play built up, came to a huge climax- but left out the denouement.  We just found out that the wife accidentally killed their younger child years ago while drunk, so she had stopped drinking, but for various reasons she had gone back to alcohol that night.  She staggered off stage, and the husband stood up and said, "That's it." with such finality.  I couldn't wait to see how he would react to seeing her drunk again.  I was like, "Oh my God!  What is he going to do?!?!"  But the play was over.  It took me a few seconds to realize that it was the actor who said "That's it.", not the character.  What?????  Are you kidding me???  I want to know what was going to happen!!!!  I mean, they don't have to go all Return of the King, but at least ONE ending would have been nice.  Regardless, I enjoyed it a lot.  Not to mention, while we were waiting for it to start, Rishabh explained cricket to me, which is good to know, since the Cricket World Cup starts today and some games will be played in Mumbai.  Hopefully I get to go to one, but at the very least, I will watch a game with some Indians.

Gateway of India

After the play we headed off the the Gateway of India.  Essentially it is a giant gateway sitting in the middle of a plaza.  Apparently it is one of the major tourist attractions.  And right across the street is the Taj Mahal Hotel.  Very pretty.  The area was gated off in places, which is the first time I have really seen police security in India, but I guess ever since the 2008 Mumbai Attacks, security in the area has gone up a lot.  After snapping a few pictures, we were off to do one of my favorite things- eat.


I have a confession to make.  I had meat.  It was the first time that I have had non-veg since I have been here.  It was delicious.  I didn't realize how much I missed meat haha.  But to be honest, I could definitely go vegetarian.  But to be even more honest, definitely not in America.  Rishabh, Elaine and I had a few different types of chicken and goat with butter naan, and Aditi and Kinjal stuck with paneer dishes and one plain roti and one butter roti.  Is that right, Rishabh?  One plain roti and one butter roti.  Conversation ranged from Elvis Day at their school to Tupac vs. Biggie to Hindi music to Bollywood to their adventures throughout the country.  One of my favorites stories told that meal:  One of their friends is a pretty big dude.  Well, one day, he wanted to get on a train, but it started to pull away, so he started running after it.  A man on the train saw him running and decided to help him out.  The guy on the train reached out, grabbed the kid's hand, and attempted to pull him up onto the train.  However, thanks to Newton's Third Law and their relative masses, the kid ended up pulling the nice man out of the train, so neither one of them got to ride it lol.  Last time he helps someone out.

Taj Mahal Hotel

As our meal came to a close, we decided that it was about time to head on home.  We took taxis back to the train station, hopped on the train (which was now completely empty), and headed back to Matunga.  I was very upset that the train was not as dangerous or scary as I had anticipated, so to make up for that I decided (with some encouragement) to lean out of the door for part of the way.  Once we got to the slums, however, I stuck my head back in the train.  I guess some slum kids will throw rocks at people on the train.  Didn't want to get hit.  But soon enough, we began approaching our stop, and as we were still slowing down, I simply jumped off the train and onto the platform.  Gotta make it exciting.  Next time, I will try riding on top.  =)




As the students walked us back to our apartment, I could not help but smile.  They, out of the blue, invited us to this art festival, showed us around part of Mumbai, introduced me to some new food, and just showed me an overall fantastic time.  

My New Friends

Not only that, on the walk home, we stopped for gelato.  Score!!!