Mom's Visit: Part II

Days are starting to go too quickly. It’s now Wednesday.

Plan: Lounge around hotel and have spa treatments at 1:30.

Actual: Lounge around hotel and pool and have numerous confrontations with spa, to finally have rescheduled treatments at 3:30, worth the wait.

In the evening, we hosted some of Leah’s classmates (Rachel, Carey, and Stella) over to our room for their weekly “Ugly Betty Night” (Leah: Ugly Betty Marriott Style). We ordered room service pizza, and I had a fall party for them with apples and caramel, candy corn, banana bread and cookie decorating. The treats were a hit. We gave them food, they gave us moldy laundry to have cleaned.

After the girls left, I had scheduled a time (10:30 pm Mumbai time) to talk to my classes back at Bo Manor (1 pm Maryland time). Spent about 45 minutes talking with the kids and substitute. Then Leah and I watched our first episode of Gilmore Girls from the First Season DVD set I brought her.

A very full day!

Thursday (Thanksgiving):

With very little prep work required for the big Thanksgiving dinner scheduled for room 274 that evening, we spent the day shopping. We took a cab over to Leah’s hostel. We had planned to go to Leah’s Human Resource class, but for some reason Welingkar refused Leah’s request, so she skipped too. I did my best to make her 4 inch mattress filled with god knows what on a slab of plywood feel more comfortable with a memory foam topper, new blanket, and pillow from home. We carried two more bags of food over to stock her “pantry” and organized her loot.

Then we set out for Leah to show me her neighborhood. Have we mentioned cow diarrhea yet? Leah was kind enough to save my shoes and point out a pile, we were debating its size and settled on 12x18x2 inch slab. I’ll never be able to eat fudge from Candy Kitchen again. I enjoyed exploring her neighborhood though. We visited her bangle lady (to get jewelry to go with our new outfits), the local convenience store (to pick up spices and Indian sweets), and did some sari fabric shopping (you can never have enough). Even Leah discovered a new store she’ll return to (one with fixed prices, which is very nice). I was particularly fond of the bangle lady, who remembered Leah from before, and put together beautiful sets of colors for us, offered us cold drinks, and gave us free earrings to match our bangles. Things will be easier to visualize when Leah tells me she has shopped for a new box of cereal. I also went to the Matching Center (they have these in Dubai) where you can buy literally any color or shade of solid pattern fabric (this is meant to be able to match all saris to make the little tops). I bought fabric for a yearbook project.

It was now time to head back to paradise and get out of the grim and filth. We hailed a cab and the adventure began. The driver was a little erratic for my tastes to start with, but after he started smoking his joint he seemed to be less erratic. We know he used the brake quite often because there was a melody of horns which played each time he touched the brake, which is quite often here in Mumbai, during the one hour cab ride.

The taxis, old, very old Fiats, are run on an archaic meter system, so a “conversion” must be made using the fare card (Leah: which is the meter reading times 13), which some taxi drivers claim to conveniently not carry (Leah: they are all required to). An hour long taxi journey usually costs about $3.00.

Upon arrival, this taxi driver claimed to have no fare card and Leah quickly did the math to figure out the correct amount. However, she didn’t have small enough change, so had to ask for change. The taxi driver refused to give her the right amount of the change. Even though he only cheated her out of 50 cents, she fought it out of the principle of it (Leah: I hate being cheated by cab drivers here, don’t they know I’m not a tourist?) using her limited Hindi. He won.

On our way back to the room, we caught our version of The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade complete with balloons, clowns, music, and floats. This was also known as “Arnav’s Second Birthday: Welcome to Nursery Land” that was being lavishly thrown on the terrace on our floor. The theme was “Old McDonald’s Farm” with a DJ (Leah: Who was probably embarrassed to have his set include Mary Had a Little Lamb, Baa Baa Black Sheep, and This Old Man. I did want to go and crash the party long enough to steal a dolphin balloon though.), balloon animal making clown, a train ride, and a full Marriott buffet. I’m sure Arnav will remember it will thanks to the photographers/videographers.

We had our appetizer course in the Executive Lounge, wine, Fanta, and cheese and crackers. 7:30 pm, time to start cooking (or softening… in the US we thaw the turkey, here we reconstitute it) Thanksgiving dinner. We had freeze-dried turkey in gravy, instant mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes, canned green beans, Stove Top (or coffee mug) stuffing, and TastyKake Pumpkin Pie. Our center piece was a tea light candle and candy corn. Our salt and pepper shakers and flatware were courtesy of Delta Airlines.

We were just finishing up our dinner when our house keeper came for turn down service. Busted. He started washing our Thanksgiving dishes; I’ll try to fit him in the suitcase to bring home for the real deal. I explained to him that we were celebrating an American holiday, if he even knows about Thanksgiving, he’s probably very confused now about it’s date.

We settled in for another episode of Gilmore Girls and then watched “Must See TV” for Leah’s Thursday shows (The Office, Two and a Half Men, The Sketch Show, and The Big Bang Theory). Leah’s a little worried she’s going to be an entire season behind if she tries to watch these shows in the States (but the least of her worries in life).

Friday:

6:40 alarm. (Leah: Ouch!). Breakfast and taxi ride over to the hostel. We were before rush hour, so the taxi ride (with AC) bordered on enjoyable in terms of traffic and number of times I had to apply my backseat brake. But because it was early, not everyone was awake on the street yet. And many who were just waking up were relieving themselves on the sidewalk, apparently the local food upsets many Indian stomachs as well. (Leah: In all fairness, you were asking for it, as you commented “Well things look a bit better when we’re in AC). The only traffic jam we encountered were the cows still sleeping in the road. We opted for the AC ride because it was only $1.25 more than non-AC. Not really a question there.

I did get permission (Leah: I was never told she could or couldn’t go, so we went) to go on Leah’s weekly company visits. We boarded a bus and waited and waited and waited for Leah’s coordinator to show up. Our first visit was to CNBC TV18. What is most unusual about this studio is that CNBC and CNN are together under one parent company/broadcaster. It was a very fascinating three hour visit, and I got to meet the rest of her classmates. We left the studio to head North to visit what we thought was a interesting bridge linking East and West Mumbai. For lunch, the bus dropped us off in a very nice neighborhood (more resembling Dubai than Mumbai) (Leah: In fact, many of us were sure we’d left the country), and we had lunch at KFC. We then walked to a shopping plaza and got dessert and a two liter bottle of water (Leah: For a grand total of 50 cents! The prices in Mumbai I will miss for sure).

(Leah: We were, of course, on time (early) for our 3 pm assured pick up at the corner and sat around waiting until 3:15 for the bus to show up, then waited another 15-20 minutes for the remainder of my classmates to show up. Lateness is a very aggravating pet peeve of mine!)

On our way to our second visit, I was saddened to see the number of bare bottom children sleeping or sitting on the street. The sanitary conditions are shocking. Leah tells me that 50% of the population live in slums or are homeless. Many of these people are employed, however. After circling under an overpass multiple times and watching a three or four year old boy nap within a couple of feet of our bus’s exhaust pipe, we realized we were at our destination. (Leah: You can imagine the chorus of protests coming from myself and classmates that we were not told this “company” visit was to a shack/makeshift office under an overpass where we were going to visit a road). Before the dust even settled from our bus parking in a dirt lot under the overpass, we were escorted into a building (Leah: That resembled a bunker from WWI) and into a conference room (Leah: You’re using the term loosely I presume?).

We met with the Chief Engineer for the Project and a representative from the Roads Department of Mumbai. The stretch of road connects the eastern parkway to the western parkway and will cut 2 hours of commute time off for most people’s journeys and is entirely funded by the World Bank. They did serve us water and plates of potato chips and cookies. We felt safe about the chips and cookies, but the water bottles arrived opened so we did not test the water. We spent about 45 minutes there. An assurance from the Chief Engineer that a visit to the place they originally thought they were going would be arranged. Leah will have to fill me in on that. (Leah: The conference room probably hadn’t been used since November of 2006, since that is what the calendar still read. Perhaps that is why they think their March of ’08 deadline is so reasonable, they still have more than a year left!).

(Leah: Mom insisted on riding in a rickshaw. Why? I don’t know. But since we were in a Northern suburb, we could catch a rickshaw back to the Marriott. We had the bus drop us off alongside the road to catch a rickshaw. Little did we know that catching a rickshaw would be such a life endangering adventure. After many failed attempts to catch a rickshaw on the side of the highway we were on, we had to cross the highway. NOT FUN. We managed to make it to the other side in one piece, and Mom’s heart still in tact, and eventually caught a rickshaw (with a cross-eyed driver). Halfway on our journey, however, the rickshaw pulled up next to another rickshaw to ask if he could take us the rest of the way. Why? We don’t know, it’s India. That driver agreed to take us but as we got out of our current rickshaw, the other rickshaw already has a passenger. Our original driver drove us further until he could find a rickshaw to transfer us to. After a very long and hot ride, we eventually made it back to the blessed sights of the Marriott gates.)

We washed the grim and grit off from the trip and headed to the Executive Lounge for dinner and a nightly chat with John. When we returned to our room, Nandu, the housekeeper, had left us a beautiful plate of chocolates. The hotel was bustling with the anticipation of Gazillion’s (Leah: Chamillionare, a hip hop artist from the States) concert. Our favorite lounge worker, Pooja, was hoping to be able to hear part of the concert, and also alerted us to the fact that the “Gardner” from the Desperate Housewives was also staying with us (Jesse Metcalf). We saw neither.

We watched two episodes of Gilmore Girls, finishing off the first disc of Season One.

Saturday: Last Day, Day of Mourning

We were awoken by Leah’s alarm (Leah: Oops. You know, my alarm goes off even when my phone is switched off? Isn’t that strange! If I had my phone switched off, clearly I didn’t want the alarm to go off). And headed to the Executive Lounge for breakfast. The first task of the morning was to start to organize luggage and be prepared for customs. We discovered, however, Leah does not fit into a suitcase. But everything else did, including the suitcase of clothes she is sending home that she refuses to wear in this environment and risk washing here.

A couple of people commented when I was packing food for Leah, that wouldn’t it be funny if right next to the Marriott would be an American-style grocery store. There is. (Leah: Correction, this is hardly an “American-style grocery store” just because they have grocery carts. Still the only things I can eat off their shelves are cookies, cereal, and soup. Hardly a nutritious alternative to starvation, and it smells bad). Today was our second visit to pick up spices and aluminum foil (the other day we bought spices, drinks, a dish sponge and soap, and Leah treated us to Palmier Cookies (bear claws) reminiscent of our visit to Gerad’s in Dubai). A fellow lounge dweller tipped me off to the place. I overheard her talking about pumpkin pie. I asked her where she found pumpkin here. She hadn’t, but told me of this market down the street. You just have to be very careful walking there (no sidewalk the whole way) and be able to ignore the begging children.

Upon our return we thought we would take some photos of the Marriott, wrong. Apparently we are under a “Code Red” and therefore not allowed to take pictures. Too bad we don’t listen. You can see evidence of our crime on Leah’s photo site.

On our way to our last visit at the pool, I thought I better at least put my toes in the sand of the beach of the Arabian Sea. Oh. My. God. A gazillion (Leah: As opposed to the hip hop artist she thought was here last night) dead fish everywhere. You couldn’t walk without stepping on dead fish. And the smell? Well, it is fitting of all the dead fish. Unfortunately we didn’t have any money with us so the boy and monkey that approached us finally went away. After a very short walk on the beach, we returned to the guard house for entrance back onto the Marriott grounds and staked out a lounge chair poolside. Apparently a couple of the dead fish made their way into the pool courtesy of the gazillion and a half pigeons and crows that live by the pool (and use it as their bird bath and restaurant). I had a standoff with a crow one day at the pool. I covered the food with a napkin. The crow would come, remove the napkin, and steal a piece of food. I would shoo him. Recover the food and the process would begin again. He tried to be very sneaky. Obviously well trained.

That brings us here, of course back to the Executive Lounge for lunch and updating the blog and pictures (free internet in the lounge). We will finish up our day with a game and an episode of Gilmore Girls and be ready to sadly be taken away by a driver at 9:30. I have the Marriott until tomorrow at Noon, but Leah will probably chose to have the driver dropped her back at her humble abode to have the comfort of friends while she’s coping with my leaving. I will probably worry more about her now that I have been here. Not the intent of my visit. Keep praying.