Why Do I Have This Sudden Urge to Buy Beanbags?

Mumbai

The ninety minute drives to downtown Mumbai from the hotel are not exactly quick commutes, but on the plus side they give me plenty of time to check out three interesting aspects of the trip so far: the bus, the traffic, and the scenery.

They say India is a land of contradictions, so I guess it’s appropriate that to get away from swarms of mosquitoes we have to get off our bus. Mosquitoes are somewhat of a problem all over India, but they’re everywhere on the bus. No wonder we were given so much warning about diseases before we came—right now I’m popping malaria pills like they’re candy. My second favorite feature of the bus is its seats. On Sunday I got a seat that would recline if you put the slightest amount of weight on it—I either had to lean forward uncomfortably or end up in the lap of the person behind me. There is a partition between us and the driver, and in front of that partition is a guy who sits to the left of the driver. His main duties seem to be making gestures to people who almost hit the bus and helping out when the bus backs up across four lanes of traffic. And if you don’t think those are important jobs, you don’t know India traffic.

As near as I can tell, traffic in India follows only two rules: 1) drive to the left of oncoming traffic (Which may or may not mean to drive on the left side of the road. It appears perfectly okay to drive on the right side unless and until an oncoming car comes your way.) and 2) don’t hit anyone. Beyond that, everything’s subject to interpretation. The de jure lanes look just as they would in the United States, with dotted lines keeping the cars reasonable distances apart; the de facto lanes recognize the fact that unnecessarily wide lanes are an impediment to having buses, cars, motorcycles, and autorickshaws (I’ll explain about those later) close enough to practically hold hands (I’ll explain about that later). What results is a jigsaw puzzle of vehicles fitting wherever they can, especially at red lights, where motorcycles might go five across on a two-lane road and autorickshaws will wedge themselves into any tiny crack in traffic irrespective of whether there’s a “lane” there.

The motorcycle in the United States is generally reserved for nonconformist youths and Hell’s Angel types, but in India it’s more like a Honda Accord: an economical form of transportation that, in a pinch, has enough room for a family of five. And we have seen a family of five riding on one. The first thing that caught my eye about motorcycles in India (apart from the sheer number of them) is the fact that women who are riding on the back of one ride sidesaddle and often carry small children (even infants) while riding.

Traffic signals, though not the most aesthetically pleasing sights in the world, are clearly meant for decoration in India. “STOP,” when written on a red octagon and placed in front of an intersection, is apparently Hindi for “have a good day,” and the traffic lights have a language of their own. The most confusing things I have seen so far are the blinking yellow light and the combination red light/green arrow pointing forward, neither of which seemed to have any discernable effect on how people actually drove. Whatever the signal, the cardinal rule of Indian traffic is to do whatever you can get away with.

The scenery along the streets of Mumbai alternates between curious and depressing. The most unavoidable sight along our drive is the slums that line many of the streets. The slum homes are about the size of a small shed, and they are built next to each other and on top of each other with no room in between. The people who live there wear clothes that are usually really old and dirty, and you will often see people sweeping around the slums and the shops. Which is a wonder, because there is so much dust and dirt everywhere that sweeping can’t really clean anything up for more than a few minutes. Also, it’s pretty common to see a dog sleeping or lying motionless in and around the slums (actually all around town). The dogs here are really sad—they’re all pretty much mutts, they all look pretty much the same, and they’re not in good health.

Somewhere along the way, someone saw these pitiful homes along some of Mumbai’s busiest roadways and had a genius thought: “Advertising!” The only thing that may be more striking than seeing the most pathetic shanty town you’ve ever seen is seeing the same shanty town with a shampoo billboard on top of it. Many of the slums have billboards built on their roofs. Many of the billboards deal with personal care items, and all of them speak to India’s growing consumer class, which obviously includes nobody in the homes the billboards overlook. There are plenty examples here and in America of people getting rich on the backs of the less fortunate, but to have something that explicit is really remarkable.

My favorite advertisement, though, is for beanbags. While “outdoor advertising” is generally synonymous with “billboards,” some of India’s most enterprising entrepreneurs have shown that it doesn’t have to be. Rather than pony up for a billboard or an ad in the paper, the beanbags people have decided to take their message to the street, literally, by spray painting their ad on overpasses, walls, and buildings all over town. In most areas, you can’t drive more than a couple hundred meters without seeing the word “beanbags” spray painted with a phone number underneath it. That’s another thing I love about the beanbags people—they’re confident enough in their product that they don’t bombard us with wordy messages or even brand names. Just “beanbags”. After enduring American advertising and all of its slick graphics, celebrities, and taglines, it’s refreshing to know that you can get your message across with nothing more than a word, some spray paint, and a piece of city property.

Tonight we had dinner at the hotel with one of India’s most famous movie directors, and he spoke to us for a little while. It was really funny to have him there. He’s one of India’s most famous people, and when he came to the hotel a bunch of the staff were falling all over him.

We’re a group of MBA students from the United States, and we’ve been greeted incredibly warmly (even occasionally followed around by the press) wherever we’ve gone. But when this director came to talk to us, we had no idea who he was, and he didn’t particularly care who we were. That was probably a good change of pace for both of us.

Cricket still sucks. India was down by 65 runs in the final innings (not inning), and they came back to win. Easily. The fielders appear unable to do anything to keep runs from scoring. If you hit a ground ball reasonably hard, there’s about a 75% chance it’s going to the wall for a four-run tally. And the fact that you can hit it behind you doesn’t help. It’s a sad commentary on my sports addiction that, despite how much I hate it, I still watch cricket intently every chance I get.

Today’s food of the day was balls—fried dough balls submerged in some kind of sugary syrup that we had for dessert at dinner.