Maybe Mumbai

Well, actually, this post should be called "definitely Mumbai", but it doesn't have the same ring, does it?
Lemme back up for a second: last thursday, my mom and my dad and i, who had been playing with the idea of going to Bombay to go shopping for clothes because Delhi is hella expensive.

So long story short, my mother and I find ourselves in Bombay staying at a hotel within walking distance of the Taj Mahal and the Oberoi (bioth of which re-opened the day after we left). Talk about a whirlwind trip! We got into the city Friday afternoon around 2pm, checked into the hotel, had lunch and then sped off to our 4:30pm appointment with our resident family designer. I kid, sort of. This woman, Zeenat, rocks. She’s made saris, gagras, lehngas and salwars for my mom, my sister, several of my cousins and aunts and I for various weddings over the years. She is extremely sweet and attentive and knowledgeable about what she does. I repeat: she rocks.

So we spend THREE HOURS at her shop and I try on everything in the store pretty much ad the most amazing thing happens – I find out I’m totally wrong about everything. When I walk in I know exactly what color I want my wedding to be. When I walk out, I’ve chosen something totally different. When I walk in I am totally convinced that I am going to wear a sari for the Indian wedding because all the lehngas I have seen in the stores in delhi are ridiculously over the top and fairly hideous. When I walk out I have chosen not one, but two lehngas during my wedding weekend. (A lehnga, by the way is a short blouse and a skirt – yes the belly is exposed, new york sports club here I come! – and a dupatta or scarf, which, incidentally, I will be using to cover my belly). I’m afraid that’s all the detail I can get into right now because until my wedding day (or days, I should say) the color, style, design etc. of my outfits shall remain a mystery. Mwahahaha!

After three hours in the shop, my mom and I go back to the hotel and have a fantabulous south Indian dinner, then walk to the lobby and do some people watching (there was a sangeet – an Indian wedding function in the hotel that night, so we thought there’d be some outfits to check out, but frankly, it was a pretty poor showing). After that we pretty much passed out.
Next day: Breakfast, then a men’s designer, then a purse shop, the a jewelry shop, then back to the designer for measurements and then back to the airport (which we got to early, only to have our plane delayed by an hour and a half).
The men’s designer was a trip. First, our cab driver gets hopelessly lost on the way (even though the store is like 3 minutes away). We end up passing it twice, while my mom yells at this ridiculously confused cab driver who obviously speaks no a single word of English. Finally I spot the store and my mother and hop out. My mom is still grumbling at this point. Then we walk in and meet the designer/owner of the store and my mom falls silent. Why, you may ask? Because he’s gorgeous an my mom, who usually has 10 million questions, jokes, arguments and statements all of a sudden has nothing to say. So I take the reigns and I’m asking this guy questions. Quickly I realize that this is the type of guy who knows what he wants to sell you as soon as you walk in the store and no matter how many dissenting opinions you have, he keeps leading you back to the same item. So now he’s telling me that Walker is a size XXL and that white people look really good in ivory – better than they do any of the colors I have suggested so far. Ok. That sounds like a bit of a generalization to me. And I’m not convinced, so I take the swatch of the ivory fabric that he wants to use and hightail it out of there. And I make sure to make fun of my mother as soon as the doors close behind us. (Later when we get back to Zeenat’s she takes a look at the swatch and shakes her head. I’ll talk to him, she says. Did I mention this chick rocks?)

Ok, before I sign off I have to tell you about our driver, Martin. You have to have a driver in India because the streets are intraversable Seriously, you couldn’t PAY me to drive in India. Lanes, traffic signals – these are all merely suggestions to drivers. Not to mention you have to make sure not to hit the rickshaws, motorbikes, bicyclists and pedestrians that dodge unpredictably in and out of traffic. (That’s another thing you couldn’t pay me to do in India – cross the street! Ok, ok, I have done it once or twice, but only in dire emergencies.) Now our driver is the sweetest guy in the world. He’s always smiling and cheerful and it just makes you happy. But he’s a terrible driver. He doesn’t know where anything is so he’s always got his map out WHILE HE’S DRIVING. Well I guess that’s not entirely true. There was the one time where he stopped in the middle of traffic to check the map. He wasn’t technically driving that time. Also, he doesn’t look. Perhaps I should clarify. One time he was changing lanes and accidentally side-swiped a tractor. Then there was the time that he switched sides of the street and drove straight into oncoming traffic in order to get around a couple of cars. And there was the time he got out of the car to make sure the trunk was closed and forgot to put the parking brake on, so the car just starts rolling forward with me, my mom and my dad in and we’re all heading straight for a ditch. Luckily, my dad was sitting in the front so he reached over and pulled the parking brake up. My personal favorite, though, was the time he was backing out a parking spot and didn’t look behind him and ended up hitting A PERSON. Ok, he was going like 2 miles an hour, but STILL. Luckily this is India, where cars rule the road so the dude just scowled at him and kept walking.

Ok, that’s all for now! Merry Christmas and I’ll catch you on the flip side.