Borivali, the suburb of Bombay that I found myself lost in, was well to-do.
Middle-class families in modern blocks reside peacefully within gated communities, security guards awake, pool included, not a slum in sight, and in the surrounding streets giant trees shade all manner of business being played out. A coconut salesman and ice cream man sit right outside the gates.
Teenage boys, worrying for nothing, drive small new cars, slightly bigger than the omnipresent tuk-tuks, and hang on the bonnets, chatting up pony-tailed girls in jeans and Ts. Just across the street McDonald's is always busy and it was thanks to their wifi and three egg mcmuffins with giant coffee that I'd managed to find the bloody invisible room that bloody morning thanks in part to the affable retiree in vest, shorts and flip-flops out on his morning constitutional who helped me locate the compound, and who spoke English like a native.
There were copycat Starbucks too, no Indian Coffee House, but Indian eateries along a small strip, and when a waiter who had lived in Manchester as well as Hythe on the Kentish coast told me that the male restaurant staff played cricket on a pitch over the road at seven every morning I got up early the next day to chase some pictures ... and then got on yet another train into Mumbai proper to chase some more.
Middle-class families in modern blocks reside peacefully within gated communities, security guards awake, pool included, not a slum in sight, and in the surrounding streets giant trees shade all manner of business being played out. A coconut salesman and ice cream man sit right outside the gates.
Teenage boys, worrying for nothing, drive small new cars, slightly bigger than the omnipresent tuk-tuks, and hang on the bonnets, chatting up pony-tailed girls in jeans and Ts. Just across the street McDonald's is always busy and it was thanks to their wifi and three egg mcmuffins with giant coffee that I'd managed to find the bloody invisible room that bloody morning thanks in part to the affable retiree in vest, shorts and flip-flops out on his morning constitutional who helped me locate the compound, and who spoke English like a native.
There were copycat Starbucks too, no Indian Coffee House, but Indian eateries along a small strip, and when a waiter who had lived in Manchester as well as Hythe on the Kentish coast told me that the male restaurant staff played cricket on a pitch over the road at seven every morning I got up early the next day to chase some pictures ... and then got on yet another train into Mumbai proper to chase some more.