by Anna Marie Fegi-Brown
I am fascinated by the film “Eat, Pray, Love.” It made me reflect on my own life, and I don’t mind watching it over and over, sometimes to the annoyance of my husband Adam.
I’ve been to Italy, Bali… and finally, I had the chance to travel to the third featured city: Mumbai, India.
I was excited to retrace the steps of this inspiring real-life character, American author Elizabeth Gilbert, who once found herself at life’s crossroads.
Mumbai is a city of mystery and also one of contradiction. In many ways, Mumbai is like the main character in the movie, having gone through a lot in the past but looking at which path to take to define its future. There is much history in the city, which was founded in 1507, nearly 60 years before the official founding of Cebu City. Today, India is known in many high-tech areas like IT departments, technical call centers, and production of equipment.
In the movie, the main character travels to India to visit an ashram, a place of religious retreat headed by a spiritual leader. My experience, however, was anything but a retreat. As soon as I left the port area I found myself in a bustling city of over 21 million people. I’ve travelled to heavily populated cities before, but nothing—not even New York City or Manila or Tokyo—prepared me for this experience.
“Crammed” is the best word I can think of to describe downtown Mumbai. There are almost 23,000 people in every square kilometer of the metro area. This is approximately 7,500 per square more per square kilometer than Metro Manila and over 20,000 more than Cebu City. With all these people, imagine the traffic, the congestion, and the noise. The traffic situation in Mumbai is very similar to the Philippines. What is more, there’s something unique about it that I never experienced in other large cities. Predominantly Hindu, cows are considered sacred in India—and they’re allowed to freely roam the city. Imagine driving along a busy street, navigating around all sorts of vehicles, pedestrians… and moving cows!
In a country where cattle is considered sacred, cows are not slaughtered. Even in McDonald’s restaurants, there are no hamburgers or beef dishes of any kind, just fish and chicken.
Mumbai McDonalds
Like many places in India, there is a huge gap between the rich and the poor in Mumbai. The slums on the outer areas of Mumbai became famous in recent years because of the movie “Slumdog Millionaire.” And then, just a few miles away you find five-star hotels and Bollywood stars’ expensive homes and luxury cars.
For this visit, I was with my husband Adam and a friend who also works on the ship, a bartender from Pangasinan named Ernesto. We started our visit by taking a taxi to the famous Gateway of India arch. This was built in the early 1900s while still under British rule. It was constructed to commemorate a visit by the king and queen. Today, the Indian people see the structure as a symbol of independence, being no longer under the British rule. The site is now a typical tourist spot with vendors selling all kinds of souvenirs and food.
The gateway to India Arch
Next to the arch is the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, not to be confused with the more famous Taj Mahal, the large, white building that is an iconic part of India. Many tourists expect to see that famous landmark in Mumbai, but actually it’s several hours away, in the city of Agra. The Taj Mahal Palace Hotel does have a history of its own, from hosting famous celebrities and world leaders to being a part of a terrorist attack in 2008 that killed 167 people. This five-star hotel has undergone a renovation and the increased level of security is apparent. As we walked through the halls we saw pictures of famous people who have stayed there, from current US President Barack Obama to The Beatles.
We decided to go inside one of the cafes to have traditional tea.
Honestly, I’ve never seen such an extensive tea menu. At the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, they have page after page of options, from Sri Lanka to India to lesser-known tea growing areas. While we sipped our tea we had a great view out to the bay and the arch.
The Taj Mahal Palace Hotel
When we finished tea it was almost lunchtime and we were starting to get hungry. While Mumbai is famous for its street food, we decided to forego it lest we get an upset stomach. Normally, before going to a new place, my husband does his research on places to see and food to eat. This was no exception and he picked this place called Khyber. Khyber is said to be the favorite restaurant of American actor Richard Gere and it has hosted its fair share of celebrities like Sir Paul McCartney, Sir Richard Branson, Goldie Hawn, Demi Moore. Even though it is located in central Mumbai, Khyber serves food that is typical of northern India.
The writer (left) and friend Ernesto at the entrance of Khyber restaurant
While Indian is not usually at the top of my food preferences, this restaurant’s offerings are delicious—from the naan (thin bread cooked in a clay oven) to the main courses of chicken badaami (chicken cooked in an almond cream sauce) and chicken tikki masala (chicken in a traditional spicy red sauce) and the desserts of gajar
halwa (carrots, raisins, and almonds cooked in condensed milk) and gulab jamun (dumplings deep fried and served in condensed milk). With sides of rice we ate this meal family style, taking a bit of everything in order to try them all.
Taking a taxi back to the port where our ship is socked, we made sure there was enough time to deal with the crazy traffic. Luckily, there were no cows on the road, no traffic jams, so we made it back safely and on time. Before we even left the city, I was already missing the food of Khyber.