From the rural lands of Chettinad we flew to the major industrial and teeming city of Mumbai, formerly known by the British as Bombay. Two opposite ways of life. Mumbai is now huge high-rise apartment buildings, a great change from when I was first there in 1966.
One of the apparent changes in India, which I think I earlier mentioned and which is even more apparent here in upscale Mumbai, is the number of personal pets. Many people walking their well-groomed dogs along Marina Drive here. I have seen many cats as well. I am told people are choosing pets over children. And someone I met knows a veterinarian in India whose job it is to spade any loose roaming dogs and cats so that the population of strays is now more under control.
Fortunately there has been an attempt in Mumbai to maintain some of the old beautiful buildings from the 19th and 20th centuries. Bombay University still stands in its glory as does the railway station and nearby buildings in the very historic heart of this metropolis.
We do the tourist visit to one of the several still operating dhobi communities, still washing the local linens and clothes by hand in big concrete tubs and drying on clothes lines. There are now some electric dryers for the monsoon season but very little else has changed and the workers are still able to support themselves in their own small area of town.
I loved our visit to the National Museum of Indian Cinema, appropriately established in Mumbai, the heart of Bollywood. Opened in 2019, this gave appropriate standing to Satyajit Ray and his impact on the history of Indian cinema — as well as a whole floor of the historical technology used in the development here of the craft. Very well done and I would like to come back to spend more time here. It also provided me with a list of historic films to watch and I hope I can find them online to do so.
On our last day, three of us have time to roam together for some final shopping and I notice a beautiful blue and white building at the end of the street of small high-end boutique shops in the Kala Ghoda area of South Mumbai. I look up and see a sign, the Knesset Eliyahoo Synagogue! How interesting, the three jews in our group together and accidentally finding this historic building, established in 1884 by Jacob Sassoon and still active today. We go in (with an admission charge and an additional cost to take a photo) and walk around the beautiful interior of this second oldest Sephardic temple in a city where Jewish emigres from Baghdad and the Mideast were welcomed and thrived since the late 1700’s.
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It has been an amazing 5 weeks of travel for me in 4 very different environments: my IPBA Conference in Delhi with international lawyers, my 2 week trip to tribal India in Assam and Nagaland with 3 good friends, 1 week with my Indian family in Bangalore, and then a final week traveling around in a compatible group to some of my very favorite places with the best food in Southern India, ending in the heart of commercial Indian life.
I write this now from home where I am enjoying my family but am already thinking of my future travels. Maybe you can join me!