So what does Mumbai look like anyway?

Here's a view from my office window. The monsoon season continues unabated. It's ben sunny here and there but mostly cloudy and often rainy for days on end since I got here about 25 days ago. The skyscrapers of South Mumbai (Old Bombay) are hazy silhouettes in the distance.

From the 21st Floor of the Lotus Business Park

South Mumbai is totally different than where our offices are in a suburb called Andheri West. They don't allow the ubiquitous auto-rickshaws and the traffic is less chaotic. There's a kind of expectation that you will stay in a lane and not drive down the middle or all over as is actually de riguer in North Mumbai. So it's quieter and more upscale. The tourists are largely in South Mumbai as all the old British stuff like The Gate of India and the Raja Bai Tower are there. It's the stuff you think of when someone says "Bombay." North Mumbai is what you think of when someone says "Developing Nation." I don't by the way mean that as in "Third World." India is on the move, folks. They are building buildings everywhere. Skyscrapers, malls, highways, hotels, bridges, etc. There is money here and the economy is growing by between 7% and 15% depending on who you talk to.

South Mumbai skyline seen at dusk from the southern tip.

The place is a bit of wreck, though. Slums everywhere. Garbage everywhere. Everything except the poshest of the posh places is dirty, broken-down, mildew-infested or poorly constructed. Sometimes all of the above. Some people are seriously trying to fix some of it but it is definitely a swim upstream. There's just so many people and so much going on that it's impossible for anyone to really get on top of it. That's India. Having said that, I don't see a lot of down-trodden people who have given up. Everyone is alive and moving and getting by. For all the failings of infrastructure, (did I mention that the roads in North Mumbai are more suited to jeeps and tanks than cars and rickshaws?) there is an overall willingness to  complain a little (mostly about corruption in the government and the bureaucracy) and then get on with it. Things do get done. 

Two views from the same hotel shows the posh and the not.

Here's a few more street scenes taken from my car. No, I am not driving in this town. For the first time in my career I am accepting that I should have a driver. My driver is an ace. The proximity alarms are constantly ringing but he never touches anyone on two or four wheels or feet.

Bodyguard made piles of rupees in its opening days.
This is a typical traffic situation.

This is my favorite new sign this week:

The director of the film was actually caught in a scam a few weeks back when he paid a bribe to a detective who said that otherwise he would arrest him for non-payment of fees to some distributor. In the spirit of Anna Hezare's anti-corruption movement he went to the police to complain only to discover that the detective was an imposter who had been bilking thousands from numerous people who believed corruption was inevitable and/or had something to hide. They caught the imposters in their posh villas and I guess, threw them in jail!

Ok, so there's a little featurette on India. More to come…