Dom Pannell's Blog

Mumbai/Bombay

Thanks to a client, I've been in Bombay for the past five days. What I will remember most is the divide between rich and poor.

This is the home of Bollywood as well as being India's financial capital and the signs of wealth and, on occasion, opulence are impossible to miss, but the parts of the city that I've seen are mainly poor, or worse, slums.

There doesn't seem to be much between the two. If there are 'middle class' areas, then the poverty must be constantly in view, whereas the rich elite, which certainly includes me on this trip, can close their eyes and not be reminded of what surrounds us. Look out of the window, however and you see people getting by in some pretty squalid conditions.

Here's the first photo I took as I left the airport - not a slum, but hardly Hillingdon or Hounslow.

In contrast, I'm staying in a five star hotel complex called Royal Palms and the conference I've been attending was in the even grander five star Grand Hyatt. Every day I was driven in a chauffeur driven car (typically a Merc) from one lavish gated property to the other.

Here's a photo of some chefs at the conference getting breakfast ready at daybreak (an early morning meeting meant that I was in at 7am)

Wishing to mix it up a little bit and not simply throw money away for the sake of it, I have taken a few taxis, which is a little closer to the life of the average Joe. Taxis cost approx. one tenth the price of a hotel car and may or may not be air conditioned (black taxis aren't, blue taxis are... in theory at least).

I'm kind of stuck, however, because the hotel I'm lodged at is in Goregaon, which is a few miles out of the city, so I can't just go for a stroll. Apparently, the forested area that surrounds me is unruly and can be quite dangerous. In fact, if it gets too late at night, cars aren't allowed in...

Still, not one to lie down and take it, I've been amusing myself in my hotel room

swimming around in my personal pool

eating curries

and drinking martinis (would you seriously expect me not to?)

To be honest, the food has been delicious, but I guess it should be in the sort of establishments in which I have been dining. My Egyptian colleague Riham and I did venture out to a local Chinese restaurant one evening, which was perhaps less excellent than the rest (the spring rolls weren't crispy), but it wasn't bad and it went down OK with a bottle of Cotes du Rhone. Italian cuisine seems to be popular among those who can afford to eat out, but I've generally steered towards Indian food - hey, why turn up a chance of the real deal?

Dishes that I'm familiar with in Blighty, such as roganjosh have cleaner, more defined flavours, I ordered roganjosh in the Grand Hyatt on my first evening which is also when I met Riham who works in my employer's Cairo office

I have to make a full admission here: when I made my order, I thought the naturally smiley waiter was going to collapse in laughter. "That's the spiciest thing on the menu" he announced "I'll ask the chef to mild it down for you!"

Now, I'm not a wuss, like, and I do like me curries, but when an Indian in an Indian restaurant in India suggests that my Indian is going to be too hot for me, I'm inclined to take him at his word.

The result was absolutely delicious, if a little mild. My conclusion is that I need to find an English friend who also likes roganjosh, order one mild and one spicy and mix the two... next time I'm in Bombay, remind me!

Luckily my BlackBerry has a half decent camera, because I left my beloved Canon Ixus in my flat (John & Karl, if you're reading this, you were eating fish and chips on top of it while I was packing).

Anyway, I'm flying back to reality tomorrow.

Posted by dompannell at February 16, 2008 2:50 PM