I arrived just after midnight at the international airport in Mumbai. it took some time to get stamped in and to take the luggage through a second security inspection. One hour later I was looking out for exchanging some rupees and figured it might be cheaper to use an ATM. While looking for one, I suddenly found myself outside the airport buildings where I could not go back to once outside and instead of having organised a prepaied taxi, an agent insisted to get one of his taxis. Even though I had not a good feeling about him, I let him convince me to stick with him, because time and my phones battry worked against me. Another hour later I got to the meeting point that my cousin Malou indicated to me. I paid the rip-off price without regrets and was so glad finding family in this crazy metropolis on the other side of the world.
Malou can also be synonymous for word-storm and only when we saw the dawn outside the window we got a grip of time again.
A couple of hours later we went together in the Sanjay-Gandhi Park in the heart of Mumbai. Within that reserve Bollywood has its studios but we went to see a small village instead. Malou gives the girls of the village dancing lessons once per week and these days there is a new well being built here. Making this happen was apparently a tricky dance itself, involving a lot of different parties and consequently also different diverse interests. Here we met Nawin and Rohan, friends who got also involved in this project.
It is a very peaceful place here, and sitting under a nice tree listening to the others discussing progress of the work and how to solve electricity and tool problems I felt very comfortable. The women of the village are the ones carrying the project with enthusiasm. Seeing them laugh with their kids and making fun of everything and everybody (thanks to Nawin and Malou I got here and there a translation) was beautiful to observe and I realized how rare it had become for me recently to witness such a moment.
In the evening we took a moto-rickshaw back to town and treated us with some dhal and a cold beer. The sun almost greated us again before we found an end to our discussions.
Thursday we went back to the village. This time, after one day of mainly observing, I decided to work a bit harder and face the stone with hammer and chisel. After an hour I was soaked and looked like a mess, dust stuck on the wet skin and exhaustion must have been written.all over my face. At this point I really started to appreciate the strength and skills of the local workers, who performed their tasks gracefully despite the heat and the big effort.
The evening held another surprise, after a first, traumatising experience with impro-theatre, I was witnessing a professional one and that impressed very much by its wit and speed the actors were driving with, it was delightful even though I did not understand a thing of the final act about cricket, mostly spoken in hindi (Improv Comedy Mumbai at Lagerbay, while you're at it also check out improvised bollywood). After we had a couple of beers with Nawin (who also turned out to be and energetic and very, entertaining actor), his girlfried Neha, Nigel (musician) and Rohan. We finished the night in the early mornig, which after three times in a row seems to, have established itself as a rule; Bombay won't let me sleep.
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