Images From Ethiopia: Trip to India

Mumbai kids celebrating Holi, the festival of colors.

Our company’s chosen delegate to IndiaSoft 2005 pulled out and my boss suggested I fill in.  Horrified, I did all I could to get out of it but in the end, excuses exhausted, head hung in sorrow, I bit the bullet and flew off to make the best of an expenses-paid week in India.

Chennai (Madras).  Chennai seemed like a good place to own a motorcycle and a lot of life insurance.

I’m sorry these shots don’t do the city justice.  I was mostly working.

After letting me take his photo the guy in the last picture called me over.  I asked him what he wanted.  Just to say welcome, he said, and to shake your hand.  Very polite.  With a nervous smile I shook his hand.  But as I walked away in plain sight, I realized I was wiping my hand on my shirt.

Dr Pramod, the cardiologist in charge of Alem’s case.  I had the chance to meet him for dinner in Chennai and he drove me by the hospital for a look at the facilities where she had been treated.  A hell of a lot more impressive than the last hospital I saw in Montreal, but maybe it was just the brightly painted walls.

Entrance to my coworker Ashwini’s family’s house where I stayed in Mumbai (Bombay).

Garden shrine with traditional Hindu swastikas.

More members of Ashwini’s and Suhas’s households.

The night I arrived neighborhood kids were playing and dancing around a bonfire outside the house.  It turned out it was Holi, the festival of colors.  Music in the form of a concert-sized speaker system is apparently donated for this night every year by a local businessman.

Colonial architecture in downtown Mumbai.  Center and right in the second shot are Ashwini’s brother and uncle, who showed me around and generally made me incredibly comfortable as a guest.

Chowpatty beach with its crowded snack stands.

Train tracks in Sion, Mumbai, the poorest area I saw.  It wasn’t clear to me how different it is to be poor in, say, Mumbai versus Addis, though it was obvious everywhere I went that India’s technology and business infrastructure are way ahead (for now!).

I got completely lost in Sion and eventually found myself at a bus stop trying to remember which route would take me back to Ashwini’s place.  Then I noticed that behind the bus stop a small sign said “Salvation Army”.  Hmmm, I thought, and knocked.  After a minute a pair of giggling girls shyly let me in and called the manager, Major Shashikala, who explained that this was an orphanage for girls (technically, 149 girls and 1 boy) and offered to show me around.  It was one of those situations where you immediately delete everything else in your camera.

More from Mumbai.  I was just there four days but it was enough to make me feel like I had never been in a real big city before.  The bustle of the streets at all hours was incredible, certainly more impressive to me than, say, New York.  Also for what it’s worth the Central Cottage Industries Emporium next to Regal Cinema downtown is easily the best gift shop I’ve ever been to – great prices and a huge selection of genuinely beautiful crafts.

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