On the Inside, Looking out

I wish I could tell you what I think of India, specifically Mumbai, but I am not really there. Yes, sure, we landed in Bombay International airport yesterday; geographically India is my location. I have not left the ridiculously comfortable hotel premises yet, so this isn't it, this isn't the real thing. Not yet.

Looking for the real India has been postponed until the weekend. Because we have a young baby, Martin and I want to wait until I have a cell phone and a driver before venturing out. That leaves me with the hotel and its neighboring country club to enjoy for the rest of the week, where I feel absolutely spoiled rotten. I'm not used to it. Martin quickly adjusted; he lived in Singapore for three years and knows what "expat" life is like in Asia. My homely ole self is not accustomed to being waited on hand and foot. But who's complaining?

The level of service here is astounding. For the first time, the phrase "never has to lift a finger" is a reality and I mean it. I don't even have to press the elevator button myself. It is a little bit over the top. The staff offer to do everything and constantly ask if we have any suggestions. I feel a little embarrassed about it... Undeserving, I guess. While I am here for the next five weeks, I figure I might as well relax and enjoy all these services that are not normally part of my daily life.

Today, I did just that. After breakfast with Martin in the cute hotel restaurant, I packed up the diaper bag and took Isabel to the club next door. The club has a daycare room attended by a sweet Indian woman who I trusted right off the bat when I met her yesterday. She greeted Isabel in typical motherese, but with a staccato, sing-song Indian accent: "Hello leetle blue eyes bay-beeee! Do you like me? I like your summer hair, yes, veddy nice. Softy, softy!" Isabel must have trusted her too, since she responded with smiles and flapping arms.

Baby-free, I made a bee line to the spa for a massage. I wanted to try an Indian style massage but only a masseur was available and that particular style is not an option cross gender. I settled for the Swedish massage, and a heavily mustachioed man from Kerala (definitely not Sweden) worked and chopped my muscles for 60 minutes, leaving me feeling like a well greased and finely diced vegetable.

One quick shower and one quick check on a sleeping Isabel later, I went for a dip in the gorgeous pool. Surrounded by jagged green things called plants (almost forgot about those after living in concrete Rotterdam), and bordered with round, white stones, the pool was warm, calming, and glittering with sunshine. I dried off on a lounge chair with a copy of "The Times of India" and scanned the headlines: Guards turn jewel thieves, Suburb roads may cave in this monsoon, Rickshaw runs over boy, Mumbai Congress to fund Slumdog kids' homes. Ah, some of the real India seeping into my protected oasis.

I went back to pick up Isabel and had a small chat with daycare lady Reshema. She is born and raised in Mumbai. I asked her about the upcoming monsoon. The news people say it should start around June 6th, and she said it's awful and rains a lot each day, but that is when the club members go on vacation so at least we would have the place to ourselves. I've been wondering what kind of things people wear on their feet when it is raining and flooding, and she told me I can buy special monsoon shoes in various styles, but they aren't like wellies, they cover only as much as ballerina flats. I suppose tall, rubber boots would be too hot. The monsoon season. That will be some of the real India, flooding in!

I walked back up to my air conditioned fancy hotel room, staring out the windows in the hallways as I went, like I was gazing at a different planet. It may be beautiful and luxurious on the inside, safe in my hotel, but outside, where I keep thinking I can find the real India, is totally different. From my floor, I can see the heart of a shanty town- a dirt square with a couple of run-down, ramshackle convenience stores. Dozens and dozens of poorly constructed homes crowd in on the square, leaning on each other and crossing over each other like a mouthful of bad teeth. When you see them the only thought in your head is poverty. A couple of kids rode by on bikes, a woman got into a rickshaw, and I wondered: what is that life like? Then there was the guilt. I just spent a carefree afternoon in a spa and at a pool while someone else watched my daughter, and meanwhile there are millions of people right outside my glass luxury bubble wondering if they'll get to eat today. Somehow, this didn't seem real either.

Is India the view out my hotel window? Is it the headlines in the newspaper? Or the western influenced services lavished on me today? Maybe it is all of these things together and at once, highly contrasting but equally real. I won't know until I break out of this bubble and see for myself. This weekend maybe I will know a little more, but I am just getting started on the real India quest. Stay tuned.