A New Year…
I have already been in Mumbai for fifteen days. Half a month of time has passed in a flash. The only famed tourist spots I’ve seen are the Gateway to India and Chhathatrapati Shivaji Terminus, the busiest train station in Asia; but these were only because of their necessity as transportation hubs. That isn’t to say I’ve been lying idle and wasting my time here. In fact, it’s been quite the opposite. Many moments of philosophical discussion amongst drunken banter have helped to shatter previous thoughts of exoticism and misconceptions that my opinions of this country where based on.
Sure, there is the grime and trash littering the streets. Sure, the traffic is chaotic and infrastructure questionable. Sure, the poverty and pollution are boundless. These are all things I’ve seen before in China and have accepted as a reality in under-developed and over-populated countries. But the real shocks of India have come from the culture itself; not exactly the variations, but rather the similarities! While there are enough Hindi and Muslim influences, it seems more like the British colonization left a larger effect on current India than I imagined. Despite its contrasting counterpart of coarseness, the highly ‘civilized’ atmosphere and Brit-style pomp still retains a strong foothold in the current hodgepodge society.
I was also contented to find that the middle class here lives near identical lives in comparison to their western counterparts. If anything, they are more refined, due to the daily interaction with the extreme diversity found in their society. So, despite calls to the more exotic or unwarranted partying in Goa, the New Year entered in a familiar fashion; at a beach cottage, surrounded by local friends who know the true meaning of happiness and live life how it should be lived.
See all of my photos from Madh Island
While Mumbai is a separate entity and possesses too many vast dissimilarities to generalize about this sundry country, I have still been able to learn that knowledgeable and inspired people from all cultures share much more in common than stereotypes dare to suggest. Perhaps these are things I knew before, but maybe it is just the unique situations lending a new perspective to understand it in another light.
Simple revelations have been pouring in like this for the last nine and a half months. Wow… has it really been three quarters of a year? In retrospect, it almost seems to have flashed by, but at the same time I can hardly remember another way of life! While the initial novelty and sense of plunging into an exotic world have receded into the past, the joy and understanding only grows stronger with each passing day. Perhaps this is another essential truth in life; I am only where I am today because where I have been before, but that forces no restrictions on current choices and leaves the future open to a variety of options.
See all of my photos from Mumbai
But as of today, Mumbai is now becoming a part of the past, thoroughly affecting where I can now go, but also forging a new destination that I will anxiously return someday. Yet, my present focus is occupied with a journey south to relax in the backwaters and meet up with an old friend from Japan.
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Tags: - Photography, - Reflection, Asia, Bombay, India, India: Maharashtra, Mumbai, New Year
Adam Shane
Amazing! I can not wait to head out. Oh yeah! Good news! I now have a ticket to Ireland! I leave on March 1st, my friend is tagging along and another friend from England is meeting us in Dublin to spend the week with us, backpacking, exploring. I’m so incredibly excited! Reading your blog is very inspiring, you write so well. Glad your having a good time. Look forward to your future blogs.
~kailani
It seems that you’ve found your stride, traveler…