Pseudo-Gangsta Mumbaikers

Right now I'm in Wich Latte again, the only place where they've got free Wi-Fi available for people staying around the area. This is in Colaba, the touristy area. We attempted the other day to head out towards the supposed shopping area (Bandra), but it took us a 1 hour 15 minute long taxi ride through crazy traffic jams, insane searing heat and throngs of begging street children. It was expensive as hell as well (for Indian prices), and the guy wanted Rs. 200 more just for waiting 30 minutes then returning back to Colaba.

We walked down a bit and then realised it was CG Road (Ahmedabad) all over again, cars whizzing past barely-there walkways, leering men (I swear India's entire socio-economic issues can be boiled down to one thing: unequal sex ratio) and lousy shops. All the guides seem to point to this area as being the place to eat and shop, so I guess it's only if you go there with an A/C cab and have a ready guide to show you aroud, otherwise, plan first before you get here.

So we returned to Colaba, and have been nuahing around the area for the past 2 days. We've gone to virtually every restaurant/cafe listed in the LP guide for this area, and are a little hard-pressed now for things to see and do.

Apparently Marine Drive is just one stretch of walkway for people to admire the view of the city coastline. I think there should be some restaurants and shops in the area, but it seems like too wide an area for speculation.

But Colaba seems to have the best cafes and bakeries and stuff. So anyway, right now we're in this cafe, and I'm seated opposite Leigh who's using her laptop. Behind her there are five guys, all English-speaking late 20-somethings, and they're decked in a mish-mash of clothing, one has a khaki-coloured flat-top cap matched with a navy blue t-shirt and he's seated with his feet on the leather seats. There's one really talkative alpha-male sort who's got stringy long hair, and he's the most domineering one of the lot, constantly trying to impress the rest with his general knowledge.

So the funniest thing about this lot is that when BEP's Where Is the Love? came on over the speakers in this cafe, the lot of them began singing along to the chorus and talking about it as if it's the hippest song in their universe (probably). That song is a million years old, and it's not even entertaining anymore. But they were loving it like it just happened yesterday (for them probably). Then T.A.T.U.'s one-hit came on and Talkative Pseudo-Gangsta began to relate to his friends about the song and it's music video, like he was so cool for having seen it at all.

I have maintained that coming to India is like travelling 30 years into the past. This is true, although, their music is a little more advanced. One thing I've noticed is that in all their pseudo-international restaurants and cafes, their idea of English music is techno-beat infused songs. Or just plain techno. This is the strangest deduction anyone could have come to. Like all the places in Ahmedabad that want to pretend to cater to the up-market yuppie sorts play the exact same CD. It begins with a bit of old-school techno, Final Countdown or something like that, then moves on to some Shakira, then if it's kinda different, it might have a slow Bryan Adams' song. Only because Bryan Adams is still big in India (it's the Time-Lag).

Theory: If "India Standard Time" or IST as it is commonly known as, means that one IST minute is equivalent to 15 global minutes, imagine the sheer accumulation of all these 15 minute blocks. The implications are astounding. Which is why when we leave this place, we'll probably experience some disorientation due to the forward time-jumping.

And oh, if anyone of you are thinking about how much I seem to be bashing this place, it's not that I'm not enjoying myself, it's just that the whole need to be politically correct and praise things is just not in my nature. I'll take the good stuff, and I'll be aware of them and be happy with them, but going on and on about nice and good things isn't what I want to do today.

Another note is for people who like to claim that "Singapore is a country with no soul": You can take whatever city soul you want to claim other places have and go live there. I will not trade the sterile environment of Singapore, I will not trade the corporate bookstores and the nice cafes, I will not give all of it up, just so I can say, my city has a soul, it is in the quaint bookstores, the family-run rustic cafes, the street vendors and colonial architecture, but all these have to exist side-by-side with dusty streets, bad public transport, a sexually-repressed generation of men, and the entire milieu of problems facing the people of that country.

Give me a first-world city filled with shallow people trying to eke out meaningless ambitions from their eugenically-directed education, give me convenience and security. And I'm not being sarcastic. If you're stupid enough to think that.

Report From Mumbai/Bombay

This is our second day here. We've done some shopping and will probably be doing more over the next few days.

We're checked into the Bentley's Hotel. It's a budget hotel that's really colonial looking. The interior of the room is somewhat like a scene out of In the Mood For Love, dressing table complete with three mirrors and other dark wood furnishing. Pretty cool writing table as well, except that it's kinda spoilt. It's one of those letter tables that has a fold-out writing space, the ones you see in colonial period dramas (where they write the letters and all).

We had a late, late lunch at Cafe Churchill, which is two minutes outside our hotel. We're in the main touristy area of Colaba. There are boutiques lining one end of the street, on the other end there are the same stalls selling fake sunglasses and curios. Plenty of people jostling for walkspace, and nice bookstalls.

We might be headed to Marine Drive later on. Right now we're in Wich Latte which is a very strange sandwich bar place.

Leigh just scolded me and told me to eat my sandwich so she can move her laptop. Right, this means the report's over.