1) Food. I love the taste, but especially the smell. If you are walking down the street and catch a whiff you almost want to clobber your way through to wherever the smell is emanating from in order to stuff it down your throat. And yes, if you happened to have caught my company news article I lied. I didn’t know what else to write, it was a political nightmare. The food here is amazing and I love it.
2) It’s very colorful here! Not only are the streets filled with people in amazing Saris and Salwars, cars and trucks are even decorated to the hilt. There are splashes of pinks, reds, purples, gold, greens, yellows – any color you can think of and it’s everywhere. And these are not the muted choreographed colors of 1st world countries, it’s a bold pop. Additionally between stall colors and posters and carts set up on the road showing off their colorful jewelry or fruit or other wares, it is surrounding and encompassing. It’s lively and it’s invigorating and it makes me happy.
3) I’m sure in a city of 22 million there are shady and mean characters. However, I have been fortunate to run into only the opposite. India has a cultural understanding of ‘hospitality’ and people are generous with their time, food, and other material possessions. If you say you like something, they ask you if you want it or if they can get you something similar. If you say, “I wish I could cook Indian food like this.” They invite you over to their house so their wife can teach you her method. They are indeed genuinely worried that you feel comfortable and happy in their country.
4) Mumbai has a lot of foreign investors paying a lot of mind to it. It is the 3rd highest growing real estate market in the world and it has a ton of cheap labor and highly skilled services available. It makes the city pulse with a clearly different type of national and international feeling. Most of India tends to be regionalized but here it seems so many people of different cultures, classes, nationalities, etc. are mixing. While the aesthetics are something left to be desired, the cosmopolitan feel cannot be. It’s easy to find a European in a coffee shop or an Australian sitting next to you at dinner. Sometimes you talk to what you think is a Mumbai native and they end up being from London or some exotic South Continent locale. It’s surprising but also educational. And people are friendly and willing to talk, not at all like the stuffy New England area.
5) I hope I don’t come off as a prick but I really do enjoy having someone to help me with household chores. I’m a notoriously hateful cleaner. I dislike it so much that I hire people to do it for me at home – and that’s just cleaning my house. I still have to do dishes and laundry myself. So having someone cook, clean, go shopping do my laundry, and bring me hot lunches every day – well let’s just say it’s nice to see how the other side lives. Even if only for a few months.
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