3 am blitz report from Central Mumbai YMCA

pls forgive any redundancies between this flash news report, and the previous quick post. This is an expanded version (expanded in a fit of hysterics at 3 am this morning!)

Well, we made it...to...hell. At least, that's certainly what it felt like last night when we attempted to arrive. Our flight from Bhubaneswar was completely uneventful, thanks for that. It was our landing back to earth that shook us up --ultimately into fits of unbridled laughter in the early hours of the morning. But I'm getting ahead of ourselves!

I suppose our delicate constitutions weren't ready for the aural, visual, super-amped, pulsating. throbbing, vibrating assault on all our senses. Having just experienced 10 days on a peaceful, ashram-like organic farm outside Dehradun, then transporting ourselves from there to the Himalayan foothills of Rishikesh, drinking in the mists of Ganga, climbing up to nearby peaks to view the Himalayas from Kunjapuri Shaktipeeth, then plunging ourselves into 10 days of non-stop immersion in dance and music in Bhubaneswar, we were hardly prepared for the onslaught of downtown Mumbai---hence the "hell" characterization (apologies to Mumbai!)..that's just how it hit us after a three-hour taxi-cab saga.

It all started out fairly innocently; we got our pre=paid govt. taxi at the airport, and announced our destination. It all seemed pretty straightforward and clear. 'yes Madame, no problem'. (well-intended) We were told it would be about 1/2 to our hotel (where we miraculously had gotten reservations earlier in the day--calling every day, as this is peak season.) From that point, things descending into a slippery slope, slowly (three hours duration slowly) , but surely. The fading light disappeared completely into the moist thick air, lending a glow of soft edges to all the electric lights that now illuminated this sprawling city.

About 2 1/2 hours into our journey (it had become a quest, at this point!), our young taxi driver was showing signs of fading...the first two 1/2 hours were devoted to navigating the most mind-numbing traffic jams I have ever experienced anywhere, ever (New Delhi has nothing on Mumbai!). Many times we were shoulder to shoulder with the car next to us --I could have reached out and kissed someone in the car next to me without a problem (not that i felt inspired to!! but it was that kind of proximity). At that point I had exchanged my normal driving-in-India paranoia about speed and crashing for a claustrophically-based phobia (redundancy...sorry!). We were bumper-to-bumper, shoulder-to-shoulder for what seemed like hours (and probably was close to two hours). Beads of sweat decorated our driver's brow, as he searched the general vicinity of where our hotel/YMCA was SUPPOSED to be *i.e. "near to Maratha Mandir". (Of course, "near to" could mean absolutely anything in India: behind, in front of, two blocks away, four blocks away, or just behind.) in this case, it meant "behind", but that too could have been any number of small streets...

Finally our taxi driver had had it. He pulled up to a near-by outdoor fish market --complete with fresh fish being eviscerated by fisherwomen a few feet from our car, turned off the car engine, and looked distraught. I pulled out my phone ---at that point Assunta was in a state of her own personal rapture, keeping entirely calm to counterbalance my growing hysteria--and I had the nerve to ask her for the 100th time "WHAT CODE DO I PUT IN FRONT OF THIS $^%*#$)#ing number to get thru on my (Indian) cell phone??" (I have been having trouble all these weeks with making my phone work...using the correct codes , etc, while Assunta has been pretty adept). She patiently turned to me and said "OO91O", for the umteenth time! At which point we managed to get thru to YMCA. This scenario was repeated at least three times, however, the driver was still not able to find the place.

It was then that I realized I had to take action...glazed over, watching fish heads being lopped off with large curved knives in front of me, I happened to see a nice older couple walking along. I practically screamed out the window "EXCUSE ME PLEASE!! CAN YOU PLEASE HELP US?? DO YOU KNOW WHERE THE YMCA IS??" And they did...leaving off with a blessing "God bless you, god bless you", which we certainly needed at that point in time...

A few more turns around the block, and yet the driver was completely fried, and went in an opposite direction to where the old man had pointed. We got him to turn around and go down another narrow street...where, lo and behold, we achieved our goal. And it only took three hours! : )

We paid off our driver with a nice tip ( he actually managed a faint smile at that point ---I'm sure he was more than glad to drop off these two Farangi with their heavy baggage!)

We checked in, looking forward to collapsing on to our beds...but NO! this was not to be: turns out there was a Christmas extravaganza party in the main auditorium of the YMCA, and wouldn't you know it, our room looked right out over the auditorium. BLASTING blaring Bollywood music was being sucked into our room through the Air Conditioner, and with every beat reverberated through our windows, which acted like a giant drum, amplifying every beat. This was punctuated every few moments by squeals of hysteria by several hundred children, who were being entertained (we had a bird's eye view of the entire goings on) by a black-clad, Fedora-hatted, underworld -looking character: the entertainment for the evening, a magician! Hoards of over-amped middle class Indian kids would explode into screams of delight and awe every time he would pull a white rat out of a hat, or use his magic stick (yes, he had one), and create flowers out of flames. He was the quintessential conjurer..from the dark side! A black vest jacket with tails, wearing shades, and the black Fedora...a scene out of Fellini, or, as Assunta noted, a scene from Terminator! It was wild...

however , amidst all of this, Assunta did manage to collapse onto the bed and fall into a deep and exhausted sleep!!! I wasn't able to however, and instead turned on the television, tryed to outblast the cacophany going on downstairs, and found the film "DEVDAS" being aired, which I watched until midnight, and finally drifted off into a confused sleep of Bollywood dreams--mixed up courtesan dreams and dances and magicians and screaming kids, bouncing off stone walls, moist air, taxis, A/C..where am I tonight???

to be continued! have to get off the hotel computer!!

love from Usha and Saraswati, the yatra continues..