India
A day in Mumbai Story by Shauna Dobbie, photos by David Johnson
The Gateway of India.
P
eople who’ve been to Mumbai have either of two opinions. One, that it is a hot, busy cesspool they could not wait to leave. Two, that it is captivating city, teeming with aromas and colours and
people. I’d heard enough of the second opinion to make me long to go, but enough of the first to make me too nervous to sink much money into a tour. My husband David, who is usually far more adventurous than I, felt about the same. So, when we found a cruise itinerary that stopped for two days in Mumbai, it was the ideal way to get a taste of India. We were there in January of this year, a couple of weeks before I write this. And it was magnificent. The Dharavi slum was the highlight of the trip. Of course, we wanted to see it, after watching Slumdog Millionaire; remember the kids running through the garbage heaps at the beginning? That scene moistened my eyes,
42 • Spring 2020
seeing those tiny children with tender bare feet surrounded by so much muck. Our children were appalled that we were planning to tour the slum. “You’re spending how much on a cruise then going to take a tour through a poor area?” But our tour guide was from Dharavi, so it must be alright. Right? On our first morning in Mumbai, we got off the boat and through immigration, into a crowd of our fellow cruisers looking for their tours. When we finally found ours, he was dressed in jeans and a ball cap and his stage name—“I’m a rapper”—was Maze. He led us to a little Suzuki, where our driver, Ali, was waiting, and we four set off in the heat and traffic in a well-air-conditioned car. All the guides of what to do in Mumbai tell you to go to the Gateway of India, a 1924-edifice built to host King George V and Queen Mary, and that is where we started. What does it look like? I don’t know. It’s quite unremarkThe Hub
