3. Slumdog is a hot dog everywhere except in India

Slumdog Millionaire opened at theaters across India the week we arrived and there was much discussion in the Indian papers about it...most not too positive. It was seen as derivative and not a real picture of India and much of the commentary centered on the fact that it had been directed by a Brit so of course it was biased. Towards the end of our trip, I read a news item saying that the film had disappointed at the Indian box office (there were English and Hindi versions), not doing nearly as well as the usual Bollywood fare. But it makes sense that the escapist Bollywood musical would do much better in a country where the median wage is less than $2 a day and half are illiterate. They don't want to see their lives portrayed on the screen when they plunk down their precious rupies, no matter how redeeming it might be at the end!

Our day in Mumbai started with long drive from our hotel far north of the city in Aarey Milk Colony (an area of dairies and forests with high rises scattered about at random, some unfinished and abandoned --it felt a bit like Corpus Christie after the 80's S&L bust). The area might have been pretty if hadn't been littered with trash and slum shacks and populated with feral dogs and pigs and roaming cows, which we came to learn was part of the landscape everywhere we went. There are some Bollywood studios in the area and, similar to L.A., you can see them from a distance, like walled citadels not inviting or welcoming to their surroundings.

We negotiated with the hotel concierge for a driver to take us into the city, which we found was really the only way green westerners like us could get around. I kept thinking that we could take a train as directed in the Lonely Planet Guide, but that was just not possible, given our lack of knowledge of the area and inability to cope with the crowds. And drivers are very cheap by western standards: to have a driver take us all around Mumbai and back to the hotel for a day was about $40. The only drawback is that they usually speak little or no English (our driver from Agra to Delhi was illiterate --he had a cellphone but he couldn't write his phone number down for us) and they really can't act as a reliable tour guide. You have to know what you want to see and where you want to go and be clear about it. Which means you have to read up on the subcontinent before ever setting foot on it: we read the suggested books and watched the films listed in the Lonely Planet beforehand and it was a great help.

Ok on to Mumbai: the first stop was the Dhobi Ghat, Mumbai's 136 year-old laundry where every day thousands of pounds of laundry are pounded by hand in 1026 open air troughs. We then made our way to the tip of the peninsula and to the India Gate (where the terrorists landed on November 26 2008) and the Taj hotel (pictured above), which is open but still has boarded up floors. We went through the tight security into the hotel and it was a calm oasis from all the noise, peddlers and heat outside. As we noted all throughout India, the hotel staff were always very gracious and happy to see us as tourism has dropped precipitously since the terrorist attacks and financial crises. This was evident at the Taj where we felt quite welcome to sit in the lobby even though we weren't hotel guests. After a lunch at the Leopold Cafe, which still has bullet holes in the window, we found our driver and told him we wanted to go a market mentioned in the Lonely Planet. It was lost in translation as we ended up in a section of the city were we were definitely the only palefaces for miles around and our car was surrounded by a mass of humanity going about their daily business. The beautiful, colorful saris that adorn all the women from every caste were floating on storefront hooks, along with household products, machinery, food stalls and produce of all varieties but we were stuck in our car --our bubble-- unable to get out and see or touch anything due to the crush of people.

Desperately seeking a respite we headed for Nehru Park with a view of the city and Marine Drive with a final stop at Ghandi's residence while he lived in Bombay, which was serene. Views from Ghandi's balcony and Nehru Park: