Mumbai, India...Surprises...Yes and No

I was not looking forward to my visit to Mumbai.  I had read about the poverty, overcrowding and density of the city.  However some things really surprised me.

Originally a sparsely inhabited swamp, the East India Company was give the land rights for 10 pounds a year in the 1600s.  In the mid 1800s, the British took control.  Then in the mid 1900s, led by Gandhi, India gained its independence.

Part of it is a modern city....

There are some beautiful buildings in Mumbai.

This is the Gateway to India....

This is the Prince of Wales Museum we visited...

And here are some pictures of various colonial buildings from the British occupation....

 

 

We visited the Mumbai residence where Gandhi stayed during his visits to Mumbai.  His room is the one on the left with the balcony....

This is where he slept, his sandals and his famous spinning wheel.....

Unfortunately after leading his people to independence through non violence, he was assassinated by a fellow Hindu who did not like his policy of co-existence between Hindu and Muslim sects.

After leaving there we visited a Hare Krishna temple...

 

 

It was undergoing some restoration but was very beautiful...

But I was most taken with its policy of feeding a midday meal to anyone who wanted one, no exceptions.....

All the food, preparation and clean up is done via donations and volunteers.  These women were cleaning the plates on which the food is served.

Then we saw the world's largest outdoor laundry.  These people pick up the laundry from the people who can afford to pay 100 pieces for $35.  Then they deliver it back, clean, ironed and folded.  Although illiterate, they have a system with a 99% accuracy rate which is amazing.

But this is not all of Mumbai.  We arrived on Easter Sunday morning so the city was relatively quiet given its usual chaos.  However everywhere we went there were beggars, buildings in need of dire repair and tons of open air shops where any and everything is sold.....this is the real Mumbai.

 

 

 

 

 

There is great disparity and poverty in Mumbai.  Built to house 500,000 people, there are 20 million living there.

There is the high rent district where the few wealthy live......

Then the middle class rent district......

Then the low rent district....

Then the almost no rent district......

And finally the no rent district.  Over 300,000 Mumbai residents live on the streets.......

These belongings belonged to this woman and child.  The child was playing on the street with only a small shirt on his back, nothing else, as his mother watched him.  He was enthralled by the bus and his mother lifted him up to interact with us.  She had great joy, laughing in the midst of her poverty, at her child's antics.  This picture continues to haunt me.  Everything she owns in the world is on that street...mattress, pots and pans, filthy blankets and quilts, yet she she was laughing and enjoying her happy child.....

As I was going through my pictures, I came across one that I accidentally shot that in some strange way represents the city.  You can decide your own interpretation......