Exploring Downtown

I went downtown to see some more stuff that my inconsistent guidebook suggests seeing.

First was the Gateway to India, a monument built to commemorate the visit of some British king and as a testament to the durability of the British Empire 24 years before it got kicked out.

Big, impressive. Cool to see. I went on August 15, Independence Day. There were a ton of people around, hanging out, buying ice cream, looking at the water. There wasn’t really anything organized going on for Independence Day though, which surprised me. I think that there were some parades or some solemn flag raisings or some such earlier in the day, but if there were, they were low key. I didn’t see anything. The only overt Independence Day thing I experienced all day was when I got hijacked by some flag pinning people who were asking for donations at the train station. That was irritating. I was walking though the train station when a woman skillfully slid in front of me, half pinned a small paper flag to my shirt, and asked me for 100 rps. I thought, wow, $2.50 for a small piece of paper. Hmm, . . . no. I’ll go to 50 rps ($1.25) but not more, especially since everyone else is probably being hit up for more like 10 rps. So I said 50. We went back and forth, 100, -50. 100, 100. -50, and so on. Finally I said No Thank You and started to walk away. She stopped me and said, no, no, 50 is ok. So I turned around, pulled out my wallet, and handed her 50. Now with the 50 in her hand, she pins the flag to my shirt, and then, still holding the flag and my shirt, says, ok, ok, now 100. I go to take back my 50 and to take off the flag, and she says, no, no ok. She looked irritated, and I expect so did I. But as least I got a flag. And I gained the knowledge that I had to avoid the flag trickers on my way back.

So, anyway, I went and saw the Gateway. Beside the Gateway is the Taj Mahal Hotel. It is a big, pretty hotel that everyone talks about. The deal with the hotel is this: There once was a huge steel magnate named Tata. He created an enormous empire and amassed vast amounts of money, and when you walk around Bombay today you still see his name plastered everywhere. Back in the day, this Tata was denied entry into the British owned hotels, because he was Parsi, not British. So he angrily built a huge, majestic expensive hotel to sleep in. The advantage of his hotel is that it ignores the color of your skin and looks only at the color of your money. His hotel is still standing, but most of the old British ones are gone. All the guidebooks point out this irony, how he had the last laugh. Good for Tata.

I have my own little theory about why Tata was the last one standing. Maybe all those other hotels just died away, as the guidebooks suggest, and it just happens that this hotel is the only one left from the old days, but my guess is that Tata went around systematically buying up all those bastard hotels that wouldn’t let him in and shut them down. I mean, if you are pissed off enough about not getting into a hotel to go and built your own, then you are pissed off enough to make damn sure no one else ever goes to any of those other hotels ever again as well. He doesn’t sound like the forgive and forget type.

His grand hotel is still extremely expensive and exclusive, charging deluxe Western prices for the rooms. The rooms come with a free bottle of wine- unlike at the rooms at the Marriott, where the rooms apparently come with a free teddy bear.

I checked out though the lobby of the hotel, it was lovely, but not astounding. The doorman had on a crisp white uniform and a funny hat. I wanted to take a picture of him, but as I lingered in the doorway, he grumpily chased off a group of Japanese tourists taking pictures of themselves on the front steps, so I figured I probably shouldn’t try it. So I cooled off in the air conditioned halls looking at the shops for a while. I don’t know why the people in the lobby didn’t stop me from wandering around; I am sure the doorman would have. I definitely didn’t look like I was staying there, or like I had the kind of money that you need to have to shop in those shops. Maybe the lobby people were nicer or more apathetic than the doorman.

Next I walked down the stone walled water front beside the Gateway and in front of the hotel. As I was walking, a guy came up and motioned to my ear. What? He motioned again. Oh god, is there some scary yucky bug in my ear? Ack! I checked to see if there was something there, but I didn’t feel anything. He motioned again and made a movement to check my ear. Holding onto my purse, I let him look. Next thing I knew he had a long pin in my ear and was cleaning out my ear wax. Then I realized that he had been asking if he could clean my ears out for me. Ah, I read about these guys. The ear cleaners on the walkway by the Gateway of India. Suddenly he was pulling out gross gobs of ear wax and chiding me on how dangerous it is to have so much wax in there. Ew, but I totally clean my ears out! Then he hands me this card explaining that he is a qualified ear cleaner and how much it costs, 250 rps per ear. Can I clean your other ear? Sure, but I am not paying more than 250 total. He continues talking, and I keep saying in reply to whatever he says, I am not paying more than 250. I look at the card, it is for some guy who is 35 years old. The guy cleaning my ear can’t be more that 20. Sigh, whatever. He keeps telling me about the importance of ear cleanliness. When he finishes, he says, Ok, 500. Huh, no, I said no more than 250. 500. 250. 450. 300. We go on. He looks very sad and reproachful. Oh, god, fine. 400. I’m already a little worn down by the flag bargaining earlier today. I take out a 500, and ask him for the 100 rps change before I hand off my money. Oh, ok. He goes over to another group of ear cleaners, and they scrape together some change. 80. No, I said 100. But it’s 80. Yeah, it is. 80 is not 100. He goes back and there is a bunch of talking and searching. At this point I figure that either they really don’t have another 20, or they have put at least 20 rupees effort into pretending to look for 20 rupees, so I decide to call it even and take the 80. At least my ears are clean now.

The ear cleaning reminded me of the little crucifixes that my mom was collecting- some of them had little spoony scrapers on the end, so you could clean your ears at church. And Katie got me a Hello Kitty ear scraper in Japan, same idea. I think I prefer the idea of plastic little spoon scrapers going into my ears over the idea of scary needle going in. Either way, I will stick to q-tips in the future. Way cheaper.

Since I am talking about ear wax, I will include here 2 more ear was related items.
1. I think my ears produce more wax in a hot climate.
2. There was this neat thing that my old roommate Nate showed me for cleaning out ear wax that didn’t involve needles or scrapers or anything scary. They were these long funnels made of cloth, and they were starched or something so they stood up straight. You put the small end of the funnel into your ear and lay sideways so the funnel is pointing up. Then you light the other end and the magical forces of nature pull the ear wax up into the funnel. Then when the cloth had burned most of the way down, you take it out and snuff the cinders, and the wax is in the funnel, not your ear.

Now I am done talking about ear wax.