26-27/mar mumbai 03

26th of march, holi, pronounced without the 'H', more or less like italians would do it. I was supposed to go and live holi at mekhala's builing, but she told me there was nothing there, and that was good for me, since I had the chance to live it in direct contact with one on the poorest areas of colaba. I reached the colaba market just by case, and realised that the area was not exactly a wealthy area. But if I found something there, that was life, energy, happines and even madness! This area is set in a kind of left over between 2 wealthy areas, occupaying an area of the docks. I would say is something between a shanti town and a slum area, dirty, but today full of color and music everywhere, people dancing, and what makes the holi famous, people throwing color, powder, to the other people, that with the sweat, or the water, stays there, dying your skin, hair, and clothes of lots of colors. They were also throwing eggs, and drinking alcohol. Many terrible things are happening during this kind of festivals, but I guess that this is happening everywhere unfortunately. It has a religious meaning (hindu) that I still don't know. People is absolutely transformed, inside, for the happiness of a day without working, were everything is allowed, or from the alcohol, and outside, for the effect of the powders, water, eggs... After seeing other areas of the city in, during the same day, I've checked that holi is lived more intensively in these areas, where the people radiate happiness, and I was told that people is waiting for this day for weeks! I guess it's a way they have to forget for a while their real situation, accepted with more or less resentment, in this life. So today, everything is allowed, and if someone doesn't like it, must stay home. It was fun to see that people didn't want to touch me, since I was one of the only 'non indians' there, but after allowing a few children to throw me color, everything became much funnier, and I finished ... you'll see the picture soon in the image blog! This area, has a kind of beach, where the children were playing and swimming but it was only after a few minutes that I realized that there was no sand in the beach, just garbage, and shit... the water was very dirty as well, and I guess that that was the perfect place to get every possible disease...
After that, I went to meet mekhala, and we headed towards one of the most elitist social clubs of mumbai. So, in 1 hour time I passed from one side to the other. This club has swimming pool, squash, gol... and it's quite big, everything in the center of mumbai. And it's very nice. It's from the time when the british were here, and being inside makes you feel that you are in that time. Wood everywhere, the signs, some of the machines, the waiters... something I didn't like that much was that to order food, you have to ring the bell, and then the waiter comes. It made me feel quite uncomfortable, so was mekhala the one to order food and stuff. We swam there, met 2 of girls that were at jazz the bay a few nights ago. We went out at night, in a place called hawaiian check, that was too packed, and with music from the '80 loud enough to make talking possible. It was fun anyway, because I could see indian boys dancing like in the bollywood films, and also looking at me very bad when I was trying to speak to girls. On the way back home, we took a taxi, and I saw hundreds of people sleeping on the street, following the rail tracks... a neverending line of poor people, families... so, once again, contrasts and contrasts all the time, impossible to be indifferent, but still looking for my position towards it.
The day after I lost the wonderful breakfast (3 slices of bread, 5 if you have contacts, butter and jam, egg & banana), and I was very very tired. I decided to see the prince of wales museum, and the truth is that I wasn't very receptive, after that, I headed towards the hanging gardens, were I took a nap, after that mahalaxmi mandir (temple), hagi ali mosque, in the middle of the water, with one single access, 1 or 2 km long, with shops in one side and beggars at the other. I can imagine seeing more than 200 beggars, side by side, some of them in terrible conditions...
10/4/05