Year: 2016

A Bass in the Distance

The metallic scales of the luggage belt slowly pass where I am standing, contract at the corners to form a triangle and finally escape my field of vision carrying only a few lonely suitcases with them. My luggage should arrive any moment now. Next to me Yuanyuan is already waiting bag in hand to finally leave the airport. „Hey“, somebody calls. I struggle to take my eyes off the hypnotically rotating conveyor belt. A young man, about my age, with brown-blonde lazily locked hair smiles at us. „Are you guys heading to Anjuna by any chance?” I shake my head. “Ah pity! I have this cab I could ave used some people to share it with. I’m Joe by the way.” We shake hands. “Where are you guys going?” “Vagator”, I reply and pull my phone out of the pocket to see where Anjuna is again. Apparently on the way. Joe’s and my backpack arrive almost simultaneously and embarrass us both to be just some more backpackers in Goa. The ride turns out to be a lot of fun when Joe, a British recreational traveler, Yuanyuan, my travel companion, and me start talking about European and international politics. Just as we say our goodbyes at hostel, Joe remembers something: „Hey listen, if you ever wanna go out together – I mean out-out – there is this party tonight apparently. The place is called Club Cubana.” Outside darkness has already fallen. I nod. “We’ll think about it. It’s already getting late and we had a long day…” “Sure, yeah. Anyways, would love it if you can make it.” We check in, shower and go for dinner in a South-Indian restaurant next door. While waiting for the bill Yuanyuan says “You know what?I think I could still go for some light partying tonight.” I think about it and am surprised to find that I, too, am finding the idea of ending the night on a not-too-silent note rather attractive. „Ok, yeah. But let’s not put to much energy into it, in case it turns out to be too much of a hassle.“ Yuanyuan agrees and we actually manage to quickly find a reasonably cheap taxi as we step out of our dorm one hour later. We are only  ten minutes into the ride when the driver stops at a turn and tells us that we have arrived. The entrance is a simple gate, revealing its meaning only at a small illuminated sign reading “Club Cubana”. Two men in orange shirts and with “STAFF” in big letters on the back signal us to pass through and follow a dirty path that looses itself in the dark beyond the gate. We follow the way hesitantly. About two-hundred meters on the path a second slightly friendlier looking gate appears guarded by even more orange wearing staff members. They nod in our direction as we pass and point towards a large parking space to the right, away from the main road that seems to go up the steep hill that rises dark and tall in front of us, specked by only some dim yellow lights between the green of the trees. I am imagining to hear a bass in the distance. On the parking lot there are already some other visitors waiting and happily chatting away. Confused as to what they are waiting for we join them and just as we decide to ask somebody, a Jeep comes driving down the hill and halts in front of us. A staff in orange hurries to open the tailgate of the pickup and we board the car. The engine roars and up it goes into the dark and toward the top of the hill. There is a cue in front of yet another small gate that looks more like a door, but it takes us only three minutes to get to the front and lose the last of our worries as we receive the happy news: Five Euros entry fee, open bar all night. Through the door we go, around a small corner, up a few steps – and our eyes grow wide. The first terrace is a big swimming pool, a vantage point with divans and a wood fired oven out of which orange staff members pull one pizza after the other. The second is an open-air dance floor, the DJane is wearing funny bows in her hair and dancing on a pedestal made of bamboo, all around there are deep seating areas like dry Jacuzzis. The third terrace one big bar, with countless small tables and sofas on the borders. Beyond arises a single colonial-looking two-story building where even more music seems to be playing. Yuanyuan and I lose ourselves and each other in the trance that this place puts on us. When I finally find her again, a dripping wet Joe is standing next to her, grinning at me. “There you are!” Yep, there we were.    

Virtually rich, really broke 

It’s been a while. And although a lot of things happened, the one thing that shook up my stay here in this already very alien country occurred just a few days ago, the night before the US elections: Two hours before midnight the prime minister of India publicly announced that the highest denominations, 1000 and 500 rupees, worth around 14 and 7€ are declared worthless starting at 0:00 that night. Two hours later the 100 rupees bill became the highest valid bank note, worth around 1,4€, leaving the whole nation with only little and less cash in their pockets to spend the next day. By morning all the ATMs were stripped of their 100rs-bills and within the first few hours of the day banks ran out of their stack of bills as well and shut down. It’s four days later now and the first ATMs have started working again, dispensing freshly printed 500rs- and 2000rs-bills that have been introduced to substitute the old denominations. But with a huge portion of the population and many many shops not using electronic payment methods the banks are still under siege by large cash-dependent crowds which no one seems to be able to serve proper- and effectively. In my opinion this is not only, but also due to that one additional regulation that might actually break my own financial neck: People are only allowed to withdraw 2000rs/day from ATMs and 10000rs/day from counters. Of course this rule was put in place to evenly distribute the new and temporarily limited denominations to the public, but for people completely dependent on cash – like I am – this poses a serious inconvenience. For me this problem becomes a notch more serious, because I actually pay a fixed fee of 500rs for every transaction I do with my credit card. When withdrawing large amounts of money at once this isn’t too much of a heartbreak. But when only withdrawing 2000rs a time and having to do that approximately 20-25 times a month,… As ridiculous – and thus entertaining – as this situation is to me at the moment, I have to step carefully and keep an eye on the news these days. Everyone here is trying to live a daily life as close to usual business as possible, weary about what might happen next. But I myself have to hope for the withdrawal limitations being lifted within the next 2-3 weeks. Otherwise this small fun financial revolution, brought to us by “Modi Entertainment” might very well mean the early end of my stay in this country.

Unfamiliarly familiar uncomfortableness

So I am sick. The doctor says it should be just a sore throat, although it feels like a spiky alien hiding in my esophagus. That being said, I put all endeavors to explore Indian cuisine aside and focus on finding meals that are both familiar and potentially swallowable without the risk to faint from all the pains. My adventurous ethnographic spirit only goes so far. Of course I saw a doctor. And then another one. And then a third one. To be nice, I just wanted to make sure. To be honest, I didn’t trust the first two. And that actually surprises me. Because up to this day I can clearly remember me and my flatmate at that time having a discussion about whether or not to trust the local doctors of the small Chinese town we were living in. I argued that doctors around the world are first and foremost qualified because of their experience of practicing medicine, completely unrelated to the particular medical tradition they follow. Meanwhile my flatmade just had an ingrown toenail removed by a doctor who couldn’t wait for the local anesthesia to kick in, so his position in our argument was colored somewhat more pessimistic. But I actually never regretted my optimistic perspective on Chinese doctors and medical institutions. On the contrary, most encounters were professional, original and comforting. So why is it I can’t seem to warm up to Indian doctors? Maybe it’s just the damn short consultation hours, in which I forget to say half the things I wanted to and I am asked just a minimal amount of questions before being perscribed a whole list of meds that supposedly cure my disease. Because going to the doctors is much like going to the hairdresser for me: The more time you invest the more satisfied I will be in the end – even if the same result could have been achieved in less then five minutes. Or maybe it’s just the walk to the doctor’s office and witnessing all the dirt and waste around me, people spitting and dogs pooping on the street, that just makes a clean office look a little too good to be true. I did make out one major difference, though, between seeing a doctor in China and seeing one in India: China has a huge medical tradition of its own which is still implemented today and which enjoys a clientel at least as big as those looking for modern medicine. But more than that, traditional Chinese and western medicine overlap a lot and people don’t usually use one or the other exclusively. And neither do practicioners. So when I visit a doctor in China it always carries a feeling of experiencing something completely new, foreign and exotic, and that means having no other choice than to trust the work of the expert in question. In India we have an Ayurvedic tradition which is still strong, but by no means mainstream, so seeing a doctor here much resembles seeing one back home in a European country – in it’s basic structure and essence. There’s a waiting room, a consultation room, people being called into the consultation room, talked to, examined and sent home with recipes for meds to take. But there are certain differences. And I think I have mentioned it somewhere before, culture shock means not experiencing the totally foreign things, but those which are look like things we are used to, but are not when stepping closer: The tiny size of both office and waiting room, the uniform price for every examination, the lack of receipts for those cash payments, again – the short consultation times, the pills that are sold without outer packaging or package insert, the number of different drugs you are told to take at once. All those little things contribute to this unfamiliarly familiar experience all the while being in an uncomfortable state to begin with. There are a couple of treatments to this sort of “illness”. Ideally, you can find a practicioner whom you can trust and who makes you feel comfortable under his or her care. If those kind of doctors aren’t around, you will have to stick with those non-professional people you can trust and let them guide you through these annoying times. That helps. A little.

Cheap Bananas

I point at a bunch of bananas. It’s just six of them. The old man nods and puts the bunch into a plastic bag. Then he goes on to lift up another small bunch and tries to put them in the bag as well. “No.”, I say, wiggling my hand in disagreement. He puts down the bunch, bobs his head and lifts the bag into the air for me to take. “How much?”, I ask. “Fifty.” I know I would get this many bananas for twenty rupees back at my place. I smile at him knowingly. “Twenty.” He bobs his head again, as if to say ‘It was worth a try’. We have reached an agreement. I give him fifty and wait for him to give me the change. He hands me a ten-rupee bill, then another, then it’s his turn to wiggle his hand in front of my face. It means ‘That’s all you’ll get’. I am short ten rupees, but I shrug nonetheless, put the twenty rupees in my pocket, take my bananas and leave the push cart. The very first and the very last thing I am thinking about when coming to another country, is the question of how I am perceived as somebody who wasn’t born and raised here. It is the last thing, because I rarely find out a definite answer at the end of a stay, and because it is one of the most exciting things to ask people about! Usually these people can not – or would not – even tell me everything right from the beginning and many of them have to think a while before giving an answer; in fear of jeopardizing our relationship or in wonderment about their own uncertainty, I can’t say. There are a few potential answers that were given to me before I came to India, and even before I traveled abroad for the first time. Usually these answers would broach the issue of “critical whiteness”. That’s the idea that my light skin color and West-European appearance in general might trigger assumptions about my wealth and social status, and thus lead to a higher risk of being the victim of robbery, fraud or over -enthusiastic shopping assistants. And fair enough, many, maybe most of the people that I ask about my appearance and the possible effects would tell me exactly the same thing at one point or another: “Be careful, because, you know, (awkward pause) you’re a foreigner and many might think you’re an easy target.” And that’s actually true. Because I didn’t grow up in this country, I am – in a sense – like a newborn baby that knows little and less on how to behave, where to go and when to be careful. And if somebody wants to take advantage of that, he probably has a very high chance of succeeding. But what I found out, is that “critical whiteness” and the negative effects of it are culture-specific. Everywhere where being white means being foreign you will be subject to certain disadvantages, but not in the same way. For instance, I am sure that there are countries in which people who look like me have to fear being victims of obduction or robbery at gunpoint. And, sure enough, pickpocketing is a thing in India, but not to an extent where it would get dangerous for your own health. Here, I am much more worried about becoming a victim of fraud or being screwed over when buying fruits. That being said, I think I should actually embrace being screwed over by merchants. This doesn’t mean that I would simply give in to any price they suggest. It means that I know the usual value of the object and I am still willing to pay a little more, if the merchant in question tries to squeeze some extra bucks out of me. Because in the end I really am a privileged young white European who’s of a fairly well-positioned family, and paying 10 cents more or less for a 2kg-bunch of bananas that’s already just 50 cents will probably not affect my future in any way. It is my obligation as a lucky global citizen to know, but to care a tiny little less about the money I am spending in a poorer country. It’s late in the evening and I’m too tired to walk all the way back home. “Rikshaw!” There’s always one close by, and now is not an exception. The driver looks at me enquiringly. I tell him my address and he slightly moves his head to point at the backseats. My sign to get in. The rikshaw drives off, but after a few seconds I notice that the driver hasn’t turned on the meter yet. “Excuse me, could you please turn on the meter?” “Five hundred”, is the answer. His way of saying, that this is the price tag for my ride back home. In my head I calculate that a regular fare would only be around two to three hundred. “No, turn on the meter, please!” “Five hundred!” he insists. The rikshaw is getting faster. “Alright, stop!!”, I demand. Finally he bobs his head, shortly turns back to me grinning, and turns on the meter. We arrive. The meter shows 280 rupees worth of driving. I dispose of checking my mobile app that would have told me, whether this is correct or the meter is rigged. The price sounds fair. I give him three hundred. He counts the money. “No, no! Five hundred!” He turns towards me, an indignant look on his face. I laugh. It’s a cold laugh though. I am not in the mood for any more games. “I payed you according to the meter.” I point at it.“No, no! No meter!” He turns around the small ‘For Hire’ sign and the meter resets. The price vanishes. I am getting out of the rikshaw. “I will not pay you any more.” I doubt that he can understand me. … Read moreCheap Bananas

Like a dumb tourist

Permaculture is weird to explain. Its a concept of the 1970s, there was this guy Bill Mollison and people are still implementing it today – even after reading the literature only that much made sense to me. People who asked me to explain the word to them must have been disappointed and astonished by how little I myself know, proudly proclaiming to be going to India soon to “do” permaculture. The last couple of days helped to fix this problem. AES does work as a permaculture organisation, but they are implementing this concept in an educational context with socially marginalized people. Since this is taking permaculture a step further, it is hard to still see the roots, the groundwork involved and the things they have in common with other permaculturalists around the world. The last two days though, we were visiting a holiday resort in the hills between Mumbai and Puna who actually specialized in paragliding, but asked AES to help them design their huge garden and farm to become self-sufficient and ecologically sustainable. The important term here seemed to be “design”. During our stay we walked the whole property while mapping the land and talking about what to plant where, how and why. No wonder the whole process felt so much like landscape architecture, however there were some distinctive features to the way AES worked that space: Instead of looking into the most efficient short- and mid-term usage of the land, they took a long-term approach and focussed on how to integrate human needs in a mostly naturally structured landscape. A phrase that really stuck to my mind was “let the land guide you” or “the place will show you what to do”. I imagine this perspective to maybe be the key difference between conventional and profit-oriented landscape design. And although it sounds a little like a esoteric statement, it might just merely be the idea of letting the land and its needs come first, before looking into the ways humans can profit from it. Another thing happened during the process of following AES doing their work at this site: For the first time, Sukriti and Chandan had to directly implement their know-how on permaculture and thus reveal themselves as the experts that they are. I was completely overwhelmed by the detailed knowledge of plant species, garden design and agriculture that they used to present their thoughts and sketches, and standing by their side, with nothing but my camera to use, I felt like a little child on a school field trip. Or like a dumb tourist listening to a city guide. What am I studying again? If there’s anything I learned from this trip, it’s that there is still so much to figure out for me, before really being able to get a “native” insight on how the permaculture world ticks in India. Right now, all the things I read about permaculture have come to life and I am trying to find out how I feel about that. But I am pretty sure already that this is going to be a mind-opening experience and orientation for what I want and can do in life. And that’s everything I asked for.    

Flushing down the Gods

Bang-bang go the bass drums. Snares crack like machine gun fire through the night. Echoes of chimes ring between each beat and a faint melody colors the whole huge cacophony a pale violet in the dwindling light of the urban evening. It’s Ganapati, the festival of the god who wears that very same name. Others know him by Ganesha, Vinayaka, Vighneshvara or Pillai. He is the lord of wisdom and intelligence, the remover of obstacles and the god of beginnings. As such people celebrate him 10 days a year in the most various ways of worship. They ornament his idol with flowers, fabrics and turmeric powder, “feed” it, bathe it, chant prayers, and practice prostration. On the last day, the idol, which is usually made of clay, is carried to a nearby well in an informal procession, and immerged into the water. So much at least for the accounts of traditional and private family “puja” [= reverence/worship]. Nowadays, these small forms of puja seem to drown in a cataclysm of mass-celebrations around the time of Ganapati. Public statues, made of plastic and construction material, are erected all across the city and revered by a much bigger amount of people. Some neighborhoods pitch together to create a Ganapati site, other places are open to the public. Puja still uses the traditional elements, but so much more aside from that, as well: Performances are being held in front of the statues, music is being played – digitally or manually, people dance, sing, drink and lose themselves in celebrations around this 10-day-event. As with all ritualistic traditions, it is hard to determine when exactly the private Ganapati puja emerged. The origin of the public version, however, can be dated back to 1893 pretty precisely. It was that year that nationalist Bal Gangadhar Tilak, a Brahman from Pune, succeeded in organizing the first public Ganapati festival. He most likely did so to partly undermine British regulations illegalizing public gatherings – and, some believe, to provide a sense of Hindu solidarity against powerful Muslim influence. Having realized independence, Indians continued to celebrate Ganapati to its full extend and the holiday still gained popularity, though mostly in Maharastra. Today, the whole city of Mumbai experiences a breakdown of regular life when Ganapati comes around again. Traffic comes to an almost complete stop, the nights are filled with the sound of drums and music and around every corner there is another big statue of the elephant-faced god, placed on stages and shadowed by large tents and illuminated by bright halogenous headlights. People take days off work to celebrate with their families and friends and to transform the streets into an emergency-state-like environment. It is not like there is no daily life happening. On the contrary: It much rather feels like a very fairly evened out struggle between those who let loose of all day-to-day constraints and those who can’t or won’t. There is actually much good to be said about Ganapati. It is an openly festive time presenting itself in an unconditionally positive character. An otherwise dull ambiance suddenly becomes an exciting, glowing and liminal experience. From an outer perspective those ten days even seem to deconstruct traditional roles and imageries and to let people enjoy themselves in an almost anarchic fashion, partying, enjoying themselves, and for once lowering culturally put on masks. That’s ten days of unruly high spirits and exceptional transgression of constructed ideas. At last comes the so-called Ganapati Visarjan, the immersion of the very idol that has been revered and celebrated for the last couple of days. The statue, small or big is carried to a water source, in a procession similar to its traditional counterpart – and, at the same time, not like it at all: If you look close enough, you can still make out elements of traditional puja and you might even come across some prayers “chanted” every once in a while. However, thickly overlaying these rites, a modern construct of digitalization, plastic and extravagance is created, adapting Ganapati festival to its fanatically urban and weirdly enormous environment. Pick-ups and small trucks carrying drum sets or huge hifi-systems slowly crawl the big streets, followed by more musicians (mostly drummers) on foot and/or a group of dancing worshippers. Depending on the procession you would find traditional music, powerful drum rudiments, or local chart hits banging off big speakers on the car leading the ensemble. The car in the back finally carries the idol of Ganesha for followers to approach it and practice puja while (really) slowly roaming the streets. Because of the size of the idol, the procession would usually head for a bigger water source, like a big river or the sea. And this is where Ganapati turns dirty – in the best cases. The statue is lowered into the water, by different means, and completely immerged. People cheerfully say goodbye to their god and ask him to come again soon next year. Ganesha is believed to thereby leave worldly realms and return to his divine abode. This concludes Ganapati. Except it really doesn’t: Visiting the sites of immersion on the next morning you would find uncountable icons, washed back to shore contaminating the beach and water, piles of dirt and waste, and plastic pieces scattered all around the area.  There have already been numerous researches on the effects of Ganapati Visarjan on the ecology of rivers and coastal areas; even Wikipedia dedicated a separate chapter on it in their article about Ganapati. Reduction of oxygen levels, aciditation through high amounts of Cadmium and heavy metals dissolving into the water, and a general environmental pollution because of all the plastic parts contaminating the shores and rivers are but the most alarming concerns researchers and environmentalists have put forward in this debate. For me as a becoming environmental anthropologist there are a couple of very intriguing thoughts connected to this phenomenon though: Since Ganapati idols were traditionally made of clay, environmental concerns are relatively recent. Accounts of Ganapati festivals dated … Read moreFlushing down the Gods

Girls’ voices

The ball hits the ground and then the bushes. A few girls grin. Laxmi, one of the smallest – and boldest, laughs aloud. I was never good at team sport, and cricket just seems to revive that uncomfortable experience back from my own school days. Except this time I don’t mind. The girls are having fun and so am I. I try another ball and this one hits the target. Laxmi, the batter, wacks the ball far away over his own head and into the garden. Soon all the girls are on their feet, searching the garden for their only cricket ball. We can’t find it and start playing running games instead. The campus of VOICE Sanjivani is located a little more than an hour outside of Mumbai. Here it feels like nature and wilderness are the hosts again already, and us merely guests in their habitat. The campus itself consists of but one long, two-storied building with a couple with different wings, a yard and two gardens. This is where more than thirty orphan girls of 7 to 18 years study, live, cook, clean and play together and where AES, the organization I am interning at, spends most of their efforts and time at. As an external educational source, AES tries to provide a practically designed and at the same time educationally relevant program on permaculture, sustainability and its practical implementations in urban or rural environments. The girls learn how to garden, compost their food, use solar energy and apply water management practices in their own little ecosystem of the orphanage. In the end this ideally makes them facilitators of permaculture practices and teachers to other kids and adults. Tomorrow is an opportunity to first test this ability of the girls. Fifty-six students from an American School in Mumbai will visit the orphanage and take part in different little laboratories where they build, plant, compost and manage things, and the VOICE girls are going to assist us guiding the students during this time. Since the American School is one of AES’ biggest clients, this is a huge thing for them. Chandan and Sukriti, right now the only two permanent members of AES have been working on this project for many weeks now and are anxious to turn it into a success by tomorrow. This is also why we are staying the night today, to use all the time possible to prepare for the big day. But activities ceased a couple of hours back already and now it is just me playing with the girls. Right now they are teaching me nursery rhymes and the hand clapping that goes along with each of them. But I can feel my clothes sticking to my body from all the sweating today and my body losing its last energy by the minute. So I soon excuse myself, bid the girls good night and go to the room I share with three other guys from AES, to take a quick “shower” with the bucket we have in the bathroom and then go to bed. The next morning everybody is soon on their feet to finish up the last preparations before the students arrive. At 10:30 three big yellow busses cramped with teenies and teachers arrive in front of the gates and soon the whole dining hall is filled with chattering kids waiting for Sukriti and teachers to split them up into groups before they go on visiting the different labs. I am co-facilitating the lab for building a solar oven. Our solar ovens are basically just black wooden boxes, which catch sunlight and focus its heat to the inside to cook a meal. The girls from VOICE have been building these boxes for the past couple of days, so four of them are with me to help the American School students in creating their own. This social experiment has a couple of potentially difficult variables though. The students of the American School are in average some of the most priviliged, modern and westernized kids in the city, some of them even enjoy a lot of prestige through their parents. The VOICE girls are outcasts of society, even their own family, and among the poorest of the poor in both wealth and reputation. Also, while all of the students of the American School speak perfect English, the VOICE girls are used to speaking Hindi only and can only manage speaking and understanding a little English. But they surprise me. The first couple of rounds Tapu, Ashvini, Paki and Vimal seem shy and quiet and only nonverbally communicate as much as necessary with the other children. But soon enough, I can catch glimpses of them talking to the American School students in simple English sentences and giving elaborate instructions on how to build the solar ovens. While the situation still feels very exceptional and fragile, you can make out potentials of some of the girls becoming comfortable with their new role as a communicator for what they have learned. The American School students seem to enjoy themselves as well and one or two even ask questions about this facility and AES’ work. That is all we could have hoped for, so two hours later, as all the students have left the orphanage again, we are all quite satisfied with the outcome of this endeavour. The girls, too, are mostly upbeat and proud of their performance and we leave them still excited from their cross-cultural experience, as we clean up the lab sites and hit the road again. AES visits the orphanage 3-4 times a week, so saying goodbye today doesn’t feel too hard. However, I still can’t wait to be there again, to see and play with the girls and learn a new nursery rhyme or two. It is a very welcoming contrast to urban Mumbai daily life: horrible traffic, constantly high noise levels, air and street pollution. This is the part of my India experience which I currently have to work on. I am … Read moreGirls’ voices

Cook it, peel it, or forget it.

That’s my mantra these days. It is like a prayer I say each time I am looking for food, to ward off evil and bring down blessings on the places I eventually end up having lunch or dinner at. I say it in fear of the higher powers that native food might have on my digestion and in respect of the unknown in every meal. Cook it, peel it, or forget it. In its essence it is actually one of the basic advices given to people who travel to foreign countries with a lower hygienic standard than their own. It suggests to buy and eat only things that either have been well cooked or fried, or that can be unpacked, unwrapped or peeled. This way you avoid being too soon exposed to too many germs and bacteria. Cook it, peel it, or forget it. However, it doesn’t take away the psychological edge of living and eating in an environment where you can witness bad hygiene first hand. I live in Bandra, a district in Mumbai renowned for its high amount on expat inhabitants. My apartment is located on the ocean side half way up a hill grown over by tall tropical trees and even taller buildings, each with hundreds of living quarters. The rooms themselves are simple but sufficiently equipped, with air conditioning, a separate kitchen and bathroom and enough space for everything I have in my luggage and more. I stay as a paying guest, at least officially. The owner swings by on Sundays to do some paperwork and his parents supposedly come once a month to stay for a couple of days, but aside from that I have the flat to myself. That also means, though, that everything is in a quite untended state: Dust and dirt on almost all the surfaces, unwashed utensils, neither Wifi nor cable, and barely any warm water access. I even have a small lizard and at least one cockroach attending me in the kitchen. Cook it, peel it, or forget it. Of course, any hassle with living arrangements is bad news at first. But there’s an upside to it as well: I was worried to have Mumbai’s authenticity spoiled by a too luxurious and westernized surrounding, but even though I live in an expat area, quite the opposite is true. The streets are dirty and badly paved, there are beggers all around the place, traffic is dense in every alley, and it feels like there are at least twenty Indians for every foreigner living here. So for now I am ok with this arrangement. If everything goes well, I should be well settled in in a few weeks. In the meantime: Cook it, peel it, or forget it.

Travel means World

At least it does to me. To me it means a lot more, tough, too: Culture, Otherness, Wanderlust, Fear, Me, People, so many people, Passion, Pain, Creation and Memories. “World” is a good summary of that, though. I am now only two more nights of doubtfully recreational sleep away to start this new-new experience. Taking a plane to Mumbai was never my intention a couple of months back, but that’s the thing with strict tolerance and keeping your options open; you might end up with something unexpected. Jackpot! Honestly, where I come from, you are actually looking for unexpectedness. Because why would anyone want to go ahead and experience everything one already knew one would? There are many more advantages in just allowing your brain to be blown out by a new piece of world. Because world necessarily means travel, means sudden- and unexpectedly being global and so much yourself as you never are in any other situation. It means having the best and worst time of your life at once – and afterwards longing for more. Concerning India: A friend today told me India was “the country of wheelers and dealers“; not too sure how much of me already feels ready for this sort of task. But I also watched a woman on YouTube (GRRRLTRAVELER) describing her experience in India as a rough rollercoaster ride you just want to take over and over again. Sounds like the right path to me, I guess. Let’s go!