So proud of my little trees 🥭

Impressions of Mumbai

Mumbai is very green, full of ancient banyan trees. It's tropical and rains all the time (in the rainy season, yes, that's what I meant). I am struck by how much I am reminded of Monrovia. It's often said that Karachi is like Bombay and, Delhi like Lahore. I am neither a Lahori or a Karachiite and, have only visited the two as a tourist but can safely say Karachi isn't much like Bombay.

Mumbai is utterly green and, in the rainy season, everything is drenched in water. The light is that muted white pale light of the monsoon season. I love this city, by the sea.

Karachi is not as lush or green like Mumbai in the rain, it's quite arid and, from all that I read, green spaces are shrinking in Karachi. 

As for infrastructure and scale, Mumbai is a real city that has mass transit, cafés, bars, cinema, theatre, museums and, the big city feel.

And, Gawd, was it good to get a drink. I had Indian red wine at house parties and, it was really good. I had cocktails at restaurants. What a delight it is to be able to enjoy a drink with your lunch in the afternoon!

I am absolutely enjoying the Metro and "local trains." Karachi like all big cities in Pakistani cities doesn't have a modern subway system and neither is it a walking city.

Apartments are small and compact. I enjoyed getting a sense of life in an apartment building, as old as the one where we stayed, where Haresh had grown up as a kid. The building (Avinash) has an elevator with 2 gates and, there are 14 or 15 floors. To see such an old-style lift moving up and down, operated by a watchman in a cap and uniform, took me back to another time, another world. I started thinking of contraptions and, nuts and bolts. How mechanical.

There are shops in the same apartment complex - a laundry, a grocery shop, even a salon. Auto rickshaws stop right at the gate and, there are shops and restaurants all in walking distance, one after another. We bought some fruit and Haresh asked the fruitwallah to deliver it to the apartment. All he had to do was mention the name of the building and apartment number. How convenient.

Haresh's childhood friends were still living in the same apartments, ones in which they had grown up with their parents. We visited a few , including one who was staying at one of the top floors. My head started spinning at the eagle-eye view of the city, breezy but too high for my vertigo.

I am quite intrigued at how such small space is utilised in a small flat : compact kitchens, bedrooms and cupboards. Owners have covered up the balconies to extend their rooms. Laundry is hung right outside the window on clothes railings - I keep wondering how clothes must sometimes fly away.

Haresh was constantly becoming nostalgic:

"We once dared each other to make 100 rounds of the building and, I won."
"I used to race against the lift and, always won."
"That man once threatened to beat my friend for being rude but he couldn't catch up with my friend who ran away."

A friend of Haresh's joked about a Parsi lady who would be constantly spying on the security guards. Apparently, she was doing a better job in looking out for the building society. However, she was also too fussy and, was annoyingly too strict. Haresh, of course, said she was very sweet and always liked meeting Haresh.

When leaving or entering the building, we would constantly run into someone or the other Haresh knew, especially kids of friends. "Look how much you've grown."

For someone like me, the idea that people live all their lives in one home and even, their children choose to stay in the same apartment or building is quite novel. My childhood was all over the world so I can't imagine a life that is physically static.

Apparently this apartment block will be knocked down to build a more modern one.

We were invited to dinner parties at friends' in other parts of town with newer apartment buildings with slightly bigger apartments. But for sure, everyone lives in apartment buildings.

Only movie stars live in bungalows and, fans come from all over to pay homage to the house Amitabh Bachan lives in (apparently, he moved out of his home after Abishek Bachan got married), in Juhu. Shah Rukh Khan's house is called Mannat and, is in Bandra. We passed by both of these. Haresh pointed out the apartment building Lata Mangeshkar lives in. I wondered why only male movie stars' homes were famous.

When I thought of Lata Mangeshkar, the nightingale of Hindi films, living a quiet life in an apartment tin Mumbai, I also thought of Annapurna Devi, the wife of Ravi Shankar who had apparently spent all her life in her Bombay flat. Somehow, reading an article about the most accomplished musician surfaced to my mind.

But that's not all. Visiting Mumbai for the first time is staggering because it is the city of Hindi cinema and, what a treat to be in the city of dreams.

And, speaking of films, I felt like all the movies and songs I ever watched were being evoked all over the place. Especially along the curves of Marine Drive and Bandstand, along the sea.

Cities by the ocean seem to be more cosmopolitan, outward looking and, have that beachy and breezy vibe. You can always look out to the sea.

I had a sense that Bombay would be very very overwhelming, teeming with people on the street, everywhere. Haresh seemed so stressed when taking the train into town, and kept warning me about the sea of people on the local trains. For sure, a few times, one was shoved and pushed as people boarded the train or were trying to get off. But walking in town or even on the train stations, I didn't feel overwhelmed. Of course, I did not experience peak hour rush or really crowded areas but neither did I feel a sense of alienation or particularly rude behaviour on the street. I remember feeling very fed up of New York and how big it was but that was because we were trying to navigate the city, we had the stroller and, New York (despite always feeling so excited about seeing it) felt hostile.

However, Bombay is a metropolis in the classic sense: it is big, commutes from one end of town to another are very long and tiring, and, people are busy. I did not get disappointed or frustrated with any aspect of the big city because as a Pakistani, it is a sheer treat to be able to experience Bombay. I was oblivious to garbage (and one could see garbage or trashed mangroves or shanty towns along the local train tracks). I was taking it all in, enjoying every second.

Visiting India as a Pakistani

Visiting India as a Pakistani is full of burdens and, requires a responsible mindset. As overjoyed as I am to be able to finally visit India, to have finally crossed that treacherous border for while millions and millions died and, so many women were raped and humiliated, I am constantly weighed down by anxiety and thoughts of my limited stay here, confined to a city - specific visa that expires soon. I have seen faces wither or get confused when I mention to folks that I am visiting from Pakistan. I sometimes feel as if I am coming from a very far-off country that people have a very obscure or terrible sense of. Even so-called knowledgeable people have such a vague sense of Pakistan, almost like meeting a unread and untraveled American or European that we colonised people like to poke fun at self-righteously. 

"I better not start any political conversations about Modi Ji or Kashmir" I think to myself, reminding myself to present a good-mannered version of myself! The responsibility! 

My visa was finally awarded after 2 rejections on a medical basis rather than for Tourist or Family Visit, which is tinged with a frustrated sadness. Also, it's a particularly terrible year for Pakistani-Indian relations which have always swung between Bad to Terrible or No Hope For Any Normal Relations and so on. 

I know that family separated by Partition still visit each other, maybe this accounts for a couple thousand people. I know India grants medical visas to Pakistanis, probably mostly poor ones because the rich folks want to get advanced medical treatment in UK or the US. Pakistan regularly grants Sikhs visa to visit holy sites. But beyond that, there's not much flow of people and, after 72 years of Partition, Pakistanis and Indians simply do not know each other. We routinely also stop trade of onions and tomatoes, is it?  It's a bloody colonial shame. 

I think it is the height of irony that Pakistan and India literally only know each other as enemies while the British are not even slightly frowned upon. In fact, we regularly buy our weapons from the British so we can bomb and obliterate each other. Who has become the Enemy and why? 

History's burdens are very heavy. 

Crossing the Border into India and Amritsar

Even while thinking all these anti-colonial thoughts I crossed the border with Kavita on a very hot  desi September with bubbling excitement. We had finally made it to India and, were going to meet Haresh in Amritsar later in the day. 

Huge flags of Pakistan and India are visible quite a ways off as you approach Wagah. A very rackety and strange little train car (the one at amusement parks) picks you up on the Pakistani side and, you go through checks, immigration and customs before crossing a huge gate into the Indian side. A trolley is given to you on the Indian side for your bags. The Pakistani baggage handlers changed some Pak Rupees into Indian ones.  I crossed the border at around 3 PM (the border closes at 3:30 PM) and, crowds and crowds were filling up the stadium on the Indian side for the boot-kicking border ceremony. Kavita and I piled into a cool bus (much better than that rackety car) which took us to the Indian Immigration and Customs where in hardly a few minutes I was done with all formalities. Exchanges with officials were pleasant on both sides. 

It's a haunted border - not only haunted by the legacy of the Partition but also by how a bare trickle of people cross it every day.  The border is a testament to what a success colonialism and nationalism are in terms of dividing people and, how there is no desire by the masses to overcome this cruel legacy.

But enough of these depressing thoughts! So what if 

On and on they grow

Kavita is too excited to see her father in India

We are soon going to be meeting Haresh in India and Kavita made her father such a cute card.