BOMBAY: Week 2

Lokhandwala is where im staying. Its not so bad and its close to the office, only a 5 minute auto rickshaw ride away. The meter on the rickshaw reads 19 rupees (45 cents) but its really 18 becaue you always subtract 1. Not sure why, but im just brown enough that they don’t try to rip me off. The other day leaving work there was a terrible stench in the air, like rotting leather mixed with an overflow at the sewage plant. I was gagging the whole way home. When I got to the apartment the stench was still there. I shut all the windows and went to bed. The next morning I woke up with a sore throat. The neighbor was gagging and coughing, and so was his wife. And as soon as I sat up I was choking too. Was there some sort of gas leak? How does this whole town smell? I decided to nip it in the bud and find a doctor first. In India you don’t need a doctor to get medicine, any chemist will sell you anything you want, painkillers, uppers downers, and oh yeah cough medicine and antibiotics. But getting a diagnosis is still a good idea (even tho most people you meet will tell you their combination of drugs to cure what ails you). So I go to bandra cuz out of the 3 doctors I find, he seems like the best bet. (1 was a cardiologist, which I geuss would be okay if I was having heart palpitations but the problem was in my throat). This guy has a nice one room clinic where he asks me all sorts of questions before asking me to strip. Its all good and normal even tho I get the sense that hes enjoying this when I ask if I can pull my pants back up and he says no no its fine lie down. He sees all the insect bites and asks me if I had my malaria pills before I came. Now im panicking cuz I didn’t and he laughs it off, not to worry. Put your pants back on and go get these pills.
The cook named Mahesh is such an agreeable chap. He always has a smile and a joke and is eager to tell you how he can’t wait to get back on set. office life is boring. But nevertheless he always makes sure you get a hot roti and a smile. So full of life Mahesh is.
Im taking a shower this morning and the light goes out. Wait let me back up. A shower is basically part of the bathroom, there is no tub, no door, no demarcation at all. Its as if you were to stand in one corner of the room and just turn on the water. So im taking a cold shower cuz I still havent figured out if there is hot water or not when BOOM! There is a huge explosion 2 feet away. The bulb exploded and so did the glass cover all around it. It goes dark. I wouldn’t be as scared except that I am naked and soaking wet and theres just been an electrical explosion. Then I laugh, already thinking about how funny this will be a couple years from now, and how not funny it is right now. It blows a circuit so all the lights go out. But somehow the AC is still running. The AC is another story cuz every time I hit the switch there is a blue electric outline around it so you have to hit it just right so as not to get shocked.so I guess in a way it’s the same story. I think theres a pidgeon living in there. every couple of hours I hear wings flapping. But it might just be a humming bird or a giant moth. Either way hes just chilling.
So l go looking at apartments this week cause even tho I’m in a decent place, the misquitos, stench in the air, possibility of electric shock, my toilet doesn’t flush, and oh boy don’t let me get started about the smell of the pillows, I figure any place would be a step up. Why am I movin? Everyone asks. This is a great building in a fantastic neighborhood. What smell? they ask. And then I have to fight the feeling that im being a stuck up American but damn I guess we do have it good. But fuck it I don’t want malaria or a 20000 volt shower so on Monday im moving.
Mahesh the cook hasn’t been at the office for a few days now. Hes been at home with fever and nausea, bedridden etc. so may people at the office are falling ill, some with the same throat infection I had, and now im no doctor but I think its something in the air. the doc said the monsoon usually stirs up a lot of this stuff this time of year. Someone said Mahesh has malaria and again im freakin but ill play it safe as I can and the rest is in the hands of god
These 2 reporters are in town from the bay area, doing a story on the connections between the silicon valley and the Indian entertainment industry so cool, ill take them around. We go visit film city, which is he equivalent of a studio backlot. We walk into 3 different film sets until we realize that there are way more productions here than back home, and then on the 4th try we find the right one. It’s a major blockbuster film with superstar actors and a legendary director, and its so laid back and chaotic I feel right at home. How long have you guys been shooting I ask the AD, which is a totally different role out here – basically overworked twentysomethings who are the only ones who know what the F is going on --- and one of the says I don’t know a hundred days? So im like oh, you mustve started in may? They were like no no, it was June. Of last year. The actress is stunning and still young enough to be cool and chat it up. Her boyfriend and co star looks like a coked out Indian version of sylvestor stallone and he couldn’t give a fuck about anyone or anything just so long as you know hes been number 1 for fifteen years. Cool guy, do your thing. Said director is in his trailer scribbling away and I sit there in silence, figuring I should leave him be, then suddenly he and his AD rush out to set and the AD says to me, oh yeah, I forgot to say, in India, we write the scenes 10 minutes before we shoot them. I love it. No wonder it takes 100 days and a year. The reporters love it too. We leave and get dinner and talk about how crazy it is to live and work in different countries, with all the curious spirits that wandering about India cuz theyre choice to live to its fullest. How big the world is and how few actually go see it. This makes my mind get blown five times a day.
I come home and pandey says don’t worry I fixed the light, it was just two wires that got too hot. That’s cool it happens, thanks pandey. Some bad news sir he says. Mahesh the cook has died. … What? Yes sir, he died today. No one is knowing why. No hospital, just bad fever then stopped talking, stop breathing, just stopping. Pandey wants to cry and I can tell he already has, they’ve been friends for years. I mean, I loved this guy and I only knew him for a week. I saw him 3 days ago, smiling and telling me about how he couldnt wait to get back to delhi. This place is so damn real. life is in your face. death is in your face. this trip is not going to easy. Where energy and life explodes in every direction, so does pain and darkness. So as I sit here on my moldy bed, with the cracks in the walls, microscopic bugs everywhere I don’t even care any more and the AC humming with occasional wings flapping, im about to turn out the lights (I should get rubber gloves) and pass out. I am alive. I am breathing. And I am anxiously, humbly, trepidly, wondering what will tomorrow will bring.