On the boat ride back to the city, I sat near the prow of the boat and let myself get splashed by the water that flew up when the boat hit a particularly big wave. That was fun. Not so fun was when the couple across from me got seasick. They were both sitting very-very still and quiet, then all of a sudden the girl jumped up and ran to the side and started throwing up. She threw up so much, she must have lost everything she had eaten for the past 3 days. Quickly, as if in sympathy, her boyfriend joined her, directly on my other side. I felt a little in the way, with the two of them puking their guts out on either side of me, so I got up and took one of their seats. We switched back after a while, when they were done. I offered the girl a mint.

You get a nice view of the Gateway and the Taj Mahal hotel from the water. The boat was tippy though.

Before heading home, I checked out a few stores downtown, offending the staff and the patrons with my sea and sweat stinkiness. I figured whatever, I have had to smell plenty of Indians on the trains. It’s coming back around baby! Take that Bombay! Bam!

Eventually I went back to Churchgate and waited for my train. As the train pulled up, before it even had a chance to stop, the men were streaming towards it and jumping in. They looked like filings being pulled along by a magnet, they way the shoved onto the train as it came into the station. I assume they were competing for seats. The other four ladies and I watched in slight amusement, and then once the train had finally come to a complete halt, we filed primly onto our ladies first class car, calmly settled into our seats, and put our feet up on the empty benches across the aisle.

But ah, the karma. My smugness about being able to just walk into the train came back around to bite me. When we got to my station, three entire football teams disguised as short, fat Indian women tried to get onto the train as I was trying to get off. I got jostled, pushed, whacked in the nose, and eventually had to shove off from the train with my feet to get through the women onto the platform. Another train victim and I complained to each other about the battering ram of women all the way out of the station.

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Speaking of karma types things, I had a GMAT class brainstorm an essay topic the other day. Basically, the topic was ‘in any enterprise, the process is more important than the product.’ They read it, and almost all together said “yeah, karma” (or some other term that I can’t remember). I asked what they meant, and they said that there is this Hindu belief that the way you do something is more important than the thing you do. It was so obvious to them, it was such an essential idea, that they basically had nothing else to say on the subject. They just said, yep. It is. They weren’t really even able to discuss it. So I was like, uh, ok then. Good example. Next topic.