The pearl of India

In Mumbai we worship the rain and wash coconuts in the sea. Vegetation takes strong green will and splits University walls that have existed before my country's birth. Morning call to prayer beckons devouts to fall to their knees and caresses my inner ear as I lie supine mezmorized by the spinning ceiling fan. My parrot mantra 'How do you say?' falls flat and curious, crawls into corners and I learn that languages here is a different shaped blanket. Instead of the Italian, French, Czech 'I have hunger', in India they 'feel hunger' or 'feel fatigue'. Posessions that I brought with me turn to heavy tumbling grains in a sack that rats have already gnawed through. Large yellow eyed cats twine around my legs and a tom named Tequila settles in my lap as I turn loaned pages. The city streets are an impossible twine of Spagetti give-way black and yellow bee patterns. My ever wet palms grip the aluminum bar in front as I lean to glimpse the Mumbai skyline from beneath the canvas covering as we head to Bandara to find an airconditioned recluse. The festival of Ganesh began yesterday and large clay idols painted pale yellow, orange and pink parade through the city streets, carried to be licked and dissolved by the Arabian Sea. Strings of red, yellow and green lights drip from the towering trees and dangle within an arms reach. My heart longs to see the countryside, away from marble blue techno pumping havens that boast of Bollywood stars. Impossible to decipher in a week, Mumbai teases me with her seaside prominades and roasted nuts. Where this city bends, there is a stand selling goods. Where she races, there is a family of five supported by two wheels. Where she sleeps there are acres of green. Where she towers, there are famous births. Where she weeps, there are bombs. there is business at its height. Saket tells me that over 64 percent of India's GDP comes from Mumbai and that 7 percent of the population of the city pays the taxes from that GDP. My pupils wax at the sheer volume of the population, production and commerce.