Mumbai

My other trip this summer was to Mumbai. It was really just a fleeting encounter, but still made a big impression. I was only there for a matter of days, and most of that was spent in a lovely hotel, working.
Still, I managed to steal a few hours one afternoon to venture into the chaos of Mumbai.

The journey began by trying to hail a taxi that would take us to the south side of the city. A few refused, a few asked for extortionate amounts of money, so we eventually ended up taking an auto-rickshaw, which could take us as far as the edge of the city, and then we'd have to find a taxi to take us on from there.

The ride to the city limits was exciting to say the least. There was nothing to strap us in, nothing to stop us falling out, and at times it felt like we were riding with Steve McQueen in The Great Escape. Even so, the lack of windows and doors meant I had an unobstructed view into the surrounding areas, the slums, the barrows of fruit and vegetables, marshaled by children who were 6, maybe 7 years old.

We reached the limit of the auto-rickshaw's range, as they are not permitted into the city centre. Our driver found us a taxi that would take us the rest of the way to the Dhobi Ghat, our first destination. Turned out, he was a friend of the rickshaw driver, and agreed a decent price to get us to the now famous open air laundry.

'Rush' hour in Mumbai

The journey was slow, as we moved at a pedestrians pace through the city. I doubt if we topped 5 miles per hour through the whole journey. The city is chaotic, energetic, full of colour, in one sense exciting, in another, desperate. There is activity everywhere, and while it's great to see the city alive and active like this, the realisation that these people are scraping together whatever they can to create shelter in the slums, and finding what little they can to sell to make a little money brings you back down to earth. There was more of this to come at the Dhobi Ghat, in Mahalaxmi.

Dhobi Ghat is a huge open air laundry, row after row of concrete wash tubs - almost 200 in total - where dhobis (or laundrymen) will take your laundry, wash, starch and press it, and deliver it back to you. Families work together, and it's a trade that is passed down the generations.

We wandered down among the streets surrounding the laundry, and here we discovered a lively street market, selling a lot of meat (goats, and their heads for sale on blankets on the ground), fish being gutted, some you could buy live, and a few selling fruit. The lady below had only a handful of goods to sell, as she tried to make a little money to make ends meet.

We were offered a tour of the inside of the concrete wash tubs. I politely declined, mainly on the basis that I may never find my way out again, should they decide to leave us in there. I imagined other western photographers, wandering aimlessly for 3 or 4 years, having perhaps been abandoned on such a tour, given the size and apparent complexity of the maze of wash tubs.

We moved on, finding another taxi to continue our journey to the more salubrious end of the city - the Gateway of India and the Taj Mahal Hotel. The journey took us (slowly) past some of the areas affected by the siege and shootings of a couple of years ago. We drove past the impressive Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (Victoria Terminus), which was attacked by 2 gunmen in 2008 and 58 people were killed.

Shortly afterwards, we arrived at the Gateway of India, built in 1911 to commemorate the visit of King George V and Queen Mary. On the opposite side of the square, the Taj Mahal Hotel dominates the water's edge. Again, this was a major part of the 2008 attacks, for many becoming the symbol of that terrible event. Six explosions were reported in the hotel, and a siege began that lasted 3 days. 32 people were killed, along with the 9 attackers.

Now, the hotel is restored to it's former glory, but a constant reminder of the tragic events lies in the security operation that greets you at the front door these days. Concrete barriers prevent any vehicle getting close to the building, scanners check for weapons and all bags are screened on the way in.

Once inside, it's a beautiful hotel and must be the best in the city. We spent an hour, getting a drink in the first floor bar, looking out over the Arabian Sea, before braving the barrage of tourist hunting photographers to find a cab to take us back to our hotel. After a period of negotiation and several refusals, we found a driver who would take us back for a sensible price, via the Bandra Worli Sea Link - a 3.5 mile, 126m high, 8 lane highway.

This journey marked the end of my brief encounter with Mumbai. We had planned to visit a few bars on the south of the city at the end of our workshop sessions - we'd worked hard enough and certainly earned it - but that decision was taken out of our hands by a series of co-ordinated terrorist bombings.

They happened in the very area we had been in the previous evening and were planning to visit again that night. Our presentation ran over, and we were late getting ready, which meant that by the time we were ready to go, the events had already overtaken our plans. As I watch the drama unfold on the TV news, it became apparent that some of the businesses at the centre of the chaos remained defiantly open throughout the attacks.

This spirit, this sense of perpetual movement that stops for nothing is the reason I have to return to Mumbai.