My next thing was Mani Bhavan, Gandhi’s residence in Mumbai, now a small museum. It is in the middle of a residential neighborhood near Chowpatty. The problem with that is that the streets here are knotted and difficult to navigate. There are no good maps of the city. The streets grew organically: they weren’t laid out by any prescient city planner. The city used to be 7 islands, then the space between the islands got filled in with dirt. Then buildings got built wherever it seemed like a good idea. Then more buildings, and so on. And now the street systems here are a mess. People use landmarks not only for when they give directions, but also for when they address mail. I am still mildly shocked that I was able to find the museum. The map that I have if this part of town is the one from the guidebook, and it is poor at best. Only major roads are on it, but what a major road is varies a bit around the city. So after several long stops, standing on street corners staring from my map to the streets around me, back to the map, then to the streets, map streets map streets map streets squint stare, ok I will cross the street now, maybe that will help, and a few really, really lucky wild guesses at what streets to go down, I got to the right area. I had stopped again and was staring at my map, hoping that it would magically start giving me a little more information, when a few helpful men walked by. I must have looked exactly like what I was, a confused white lady who wanted to go to Mani Bhavan, because as the guys passed, one of them barked “Mani Bhavan! There!” and poked the air with his finger, pointing to the lane across the street. I looked up from my map and grinned, gave him a thumbs up and called thanks. And yes indeed, MB was across the street.
MB is a pleasant smallish mansion with some fairly simple exhibits set up. On the first floor, displays of some pictures of Gandhi, some of his writings, etc. There was one display with pictures of all of G’s worldly possessions (he didn’t have much). There was a little of the correspondence between Gandhi and Tolstoy, which I thought was cool. There was a letter that Gandhi wrote to Hitler, telling him that he was possibly the only person who could stop the war from happening, and to please do so. The note wasn’t very long, G didn’t spend a lot of words outlining what he thought, maybe he knew there wasn’t much point. There was a typo in the Hitler letter though, which I thought was weird. I mean, if you are going to bother to send a letter to Hitler, proofread it for God’s sake. Maybe they couldn’t find the original and that was a first draft, I don’t know. Watevr.
There were some handwriting samples too. On one page, the writing is slanted one way, and then a third of the way down it shifts and slants the other way. Apparently when one of Gandhi’s hands got tired he would switch to the other one and continue writing. Wow.
There was also some information on Gandhi’s assassination. How his last words were something along the lines of: If I have to go to God because of a madman’s bullet, I will at least go without anger. And he died bowing to his murderer. That is some incredibly stubborn sticking to your principles of nonviolence. A stubborn, stubborn man.
On the second floor there were dioramas of various important events in G’s life. They were kind of funny/ kind of creepy. Like an eighth grade project that someone’s arts and crafts mom helped out with. Also on this floor, you could see the room that G lived in. As one might expect, it had a full liquor cabinet, lots of candy, and showgirl costumes.
From Gandhi’s house I walked north and west back to the coastline to get to two of big holy sites in the city. That sounds a lot easier than it was; I guess I should say that through a series of guesses, several more minutes staring at my map, panicked street crossings, the help of one security guard, information on one street sign, and sheer dumb luck I managed to find the right road to follow up to two of the city’s holy sites.
I was supposed to hit a big bookstore on my way up the road (one of my big holy sites) but I guess it has moved or been relocated because I walked up that whole long damn road (it was longer than it looked on the map) and it wasn’t anywhere. I was disappointed.