Bollywood

Exhausted from the slum we returned home for a quick rest before cabbing towards Crawford Market. The market was surprisingly peaceful compared to the rest of Mumbai, and vendors pitched us on various spices and fruits as we wandered. One corner would have a beautiful display of fresh fruit and the next a desolate alley rank with garbage. It was a strange contrast.

Afterwords we walked to Badshah Juices and drank a falooda, a rose flavored ice cream drink, and ate a uttappa, a pancake-like snack with peppers and mushrooms. Like everything else we’ve eaten thus far, the dish came alongside two spicy dipping sauces.

The Bazaar District was close by, and we walked down empty streets until we came across an area overflowing with people. Hundreds of tightly-packed stores sold colorful traditional dresses and yards of silk fabric. As we walked, the shop-owners encouraged us to take photos of them with their dresses. There were tens of thousands of dresses and I couldn’t tell the difference between them. Nonetheless people swarmed the stores, offering prices in the steamy rain.

We quickly tired of the street and caught a cab to the Regal Cinema in Colaba. The cinema is one of the hubs for Bollywood films in Mumbai, and we paid 380 rupees to see Babumoshai Bandookbaaz. Ray Ban paid for a ridiculous amount of product placement in the film and nearly every scene featured a main character making a show of putting on the branded glasses. The movie was a combination of romance, action, comedy, and musicality. One character would break into a choreographed song and in the next be shooting someone in the head. The film was entirely in Hindi so our understanding was limited.

We figured out one of the reasons we made the scene in the Dharavi slum restaurant. In an effort to do as the locals do we mowed down our food with our hands. In India, eating with your right hand is the norm as you use your left hand to wipe your ass.  Unfortunately we’re both left handed. Now we know.