At the End of the World

It is the end of June and I have stepped off the plane into the beautiful, heaving, exotic, garbage-ridden streets of Mumbai. This city is like none other I have ever seen before. I find no common reference points between where I have lived in Canada, England and France and this living place, where everything is in constant motion. And making constant noise. Here, everything is too much, overwhelming and in-your-face, at least, that is, until you start to get used to it.

I arrived in the financial capital of India not only as a confused foreigner but worse still as a lowly intern. For six weeks, my time is to be spent writing articles in the city section of a well-reputed newspaper called the Indian Times. Luckily, my job responsibilities do not include getting coffee and chai, or doing the photocopying because in India labour is so inexpensive that someone has been hired specifically to do those tasks. So, a new city, a new life and a new job. And I actually wanted all of this.

During my flight from London, my backpack was lost. My only suitcase and sole tie to anything similar and comforting. My first day was therefore spent slugging from shop to shop under the blazing sun with, very honestly, thousands of other Saturday bargain hunters. My mission was to replace the bare essentials, while I prayed that my baggage would arrive the next day. I think that I would have appreciated the experience more if I had only known how rare and precious a thing like sunshine could be. Two days later, the monsoon started.

The first day the water poured down, hitting the pavement and exploding like tiny viscous missiles. One followed by another and then another. The streets began to fill up. The puddles turned into larger puddles and then started to resemble rivers. A current circulated from high to low points and accordingly one had to walk with or against it. Car tires were drowned in liquid and a wake shot out behind them as they drove, like following a boat on water-skis. I had to wade up to my ankles to reach the door of my building. And I think that I was one of the lucky ones. I saw photos of people waste deep in mucky, murky rain water. One made me laugh: a man with an umbrella in one hand, a tray of tea in another and the water lapping at his hips.

I really thought that it was the end of the world. And it may come yet. The tides are expected to reach record heights at the end of July and with no drainage system to speak of and no where for the water to go, it will slowly rise and paralyse the city. In 2005 there were similar water levels and the city shut down for three days. Thousands of people died, many suffocated, unable to escape from cars and other enclosed spaces. This makes me fearful.

But my Indian colleagues and friends are very unfazed by the whole thing. They are perennially subjected to this quasi-apocalyptic weather and just deal with it. My friend Natasha loves being in the wind and rain and called me out onto the roof of our building to watch the madness and majesty of it all.

My only defense: blue rubber boots. At least that way I’ll be protected up to my shins. I don’t like having wet feet and I imagine that the water carries lots of nasty and unwanted things. If I don’t wear them, I carry them; but they remain my very faithful, though cumbersome, companions. People stare as I pass by, but as my sheer presence attracts constant stares it is hard to say what is, in fact, spurring their curiosity. Where I live, there are very few tourists and so many of my ‘neighbours’ have never seen a white person in real life before (it may seem politically incorrect to say, but I don’t know how else to say it).

My work continues as I become more accustomed to the differentness of Mumbai. I hope that when it rains, it won’t be too long or too hard. Deep down, I know better. Perhaps my boots will serve as a kind of modern-aged rabbits’ foot. But I no longer think that I am facing the end of the world. No, no, it is just the beginning.

Jen Carswell