Wednesday, August 26, 2009

The Upper West Side of Bombay

Bombay is a big city. I say that not to state the obvious - actually just the opposite. Bombay is also an Indian city, but it feels in many ways more like a big city with Indian twists than it does like other Indian cities.

I'm here for two weeks (three days gone so far) for work, and I should point out that I'm staying in Bandra, which is apparantly the poshest part of town these days. Still, in a lot of ways it feels less like Banjara Hills, Hyderabad, than it does like the Upper West Side of Manhattan. For example...

Hyderabad's streets, even the nice ones, are packed with motorcycles, scooters, cows, etc. Here it's mostly cars.

People here mostly dress in Western clothing. I should say women, actually, because men throughout the country, as far as I've seen at least, seem to all dress about the same. But there are far fewer saris and salwars on the street here than in Hyderabad.

Upscale boutiques and coffee shops are far more common than in Hyderabad.

There's a sense of order to the streets. This is just Bandra, I think, but in this area the streets are mostly laid out in a grid.

People come from so many different places that there's lots of English spoken in Bombay.

That's enough for now. Time to go out for another walk. I have only a vague idea of where I'm going, but I'm sure there will be something interesting.

4 comments:

Beth said...

Do you and Pam actually ever see each other? ;)

Elaine said...

How is the visa line there? Same, different? Are you in a hotel or a temporary apartment?

Winnie said...

Was not aware that I used to live in a "post" side of town... now is that a good thing or bad thing? :)
UWS 4EVA hee!

Winnie said...

ok, I might have been somewhere "posh," once upon a time, but clearly never learned to spell....