Wrong Way to Bombay

Monday 11 Feb. 

I do love notices !

To anyone who's just joined, or rejoined, hello and welcome. Namaste. I'm back in India for 3 weeks, travelling solo, visiting Mumbai (briefly), then on to Goa and Kerala. I won't reveal the route plan, as it's very flexible at this stage. After Mumbai, no hotels booked, only two of perhaps many train trips reserved. I could end up anywhere, almost. Read on.

Tuesday 12 Feb

For the (my) record, leave Wymondham and my sandwiches behind, arriving at Heathrow 5 with hours to spare. I'm flying stand-by with Kind Nephew Simon's (not quite) free BA staff ticket, and he's warned me that if the plane is full they won't let me board. But they do. There are several spare seats in the middle rows, and KNS has emailed the captain to drive carefully as there's an aged uncle on board. I am awarded a "partial upgrade" to a window seat with a empty place between me an a charming young Indian next the aisle . We congratulate each other on our good fortune, and he 'phones his Mum in Bradford to tell her how relieved he is not to have to sit next to this aged beardy, though he did't put it quite like that in my earshot. 

Flight leaves on time at 9.25pm, but the long wait for food (after midnight!) makes some people restive. I sleep. Luck runs thin in Mumbai, however. I should explain (in case you didn't know) that this is my second visit to India within the 6-month term of my current visa. It's a tourist "multiple" visa, though that's a bit of a misnomer as the regulations state that if you make more than one visit, there must be a gap of at least 60 clear days between visits. So, for multiple, read two (or perhaps three if you fancy day trips to the sub-continent). What the rules don't state is that having declared a "port of entry" on the application, they expect you always to use the same route, and Mumbai (or Bombay) is definitely not Kolkata (or even Calcutta). So, I go to the immigration desk on arrival and show my passport/visa. Man looks me up and down in a friendly enough way, then a shadow flits across his moustachio. Perhaps he reads the Daily Mail, and thinks I may be a covert Romanian. He makes a telephone call (in Hindi, of course), then "invites" me to follow him to an interview room. Here a gang of four assemble and discuss my case. They have that Midsomer Murders technique of holding the document at arms length and repeatedly glancing from passport to me and back. "Your visa clearly states Kolkata," they remind me again and again. "So why you have come to Mumbai?" It's a taxing one to answer without sounding cheeky. Then, (do I detect a CPS barrister in training?) "If you go to France," they say, "and enter at Paris, you would not expect to go back again and enter at........ (voice fades)" I prompt "Calais?" just to sound helpful. "Yes, Calais," they agree. Well, actually....... Sometimes it's so hard not to sound a little presumptuous. In the end, they call the "big boss." Golly, she is big, too. We rehearse the script yet again. She tells me in no uncertain terms that Kolkata it states, Kolkata it means, and Kolkata it must be. I must fly on to Kolkata, then come back to Mumbai if I so wish, but leave again from Kolkata. But my hotel is booked here, I protest. Eventually, even she tires of the debate. She relents and sends for the rubber stamp with which she formally admits me. As I leave, one of the other immigration officers winks confidentially at me, "she is being very kind today," he says. Where DID they learn this bureaucracy? Oh, I remember, it was from us!

As I go for a pre-paid taxi (its 22 congested kms. from the airport to the city centre) I switch on my Indian mobile telephone which proceeds to bleat at me with a backlog of text after irritating text. The first to arrive says "Have you checked your blood sugar level? Dial *512*267# for further weight loss tips." I buy a copy of Mumbai Mid Day (tabloid newspaper) and read that this year urban Indians are "gifting" each other pre-Valentine's Day vouchers for "botox boosters and butt jobs." In case you're in any doubt (I was) the article later defines the latter as "skin-tightening treatment for the buttocks to ensure a wrinkle-free relationship." Bottoms up!

I don't venture far this afternoon and turn down the hotel's offer of a "slum tour" for tomorrow. I've no wish to be a voyeur of other people's misery. The Travellers Hotel is just a short walk from some of the world's most over-the-top architecture. The Byzantine City Hall (as we might call it), the orientalised Florentine Times of India building, the General Post Office like a huge grey granite mosque and especially the totally barmy CST Station (formerly Victoria Terminus) with just about every architectural style stretched to its limits must set the pulse racing in even the mildest-mannered architecture buff. The last mentioned is, incidentally, the largest British building in India but manages (I think) to avoid being pompous. It's just too silly. It's like a whole family of St. Pancrases gathered together for a group photo, and it's a World Heritage Site. See for yourself (photo attached). 

[I tried to upload this to the blog at 00.30, but the wi-fi was switched off. However, I made the rather startling discoverey that the staff here sleep on thin mattresses in the corridors outside the bedroom doors!]