One Billion + 1

One of the favorite games I enjoy engaging in with shop-keepers is the 'guess what country I'm from' game. Invariably their first guess is Germany, which is a bit baffling, at least from an accent perspective. While a taxi driver told me yesterday that I have a German-looking face, I think it probably has more to do with the fact that Germans are the best-travelled people on the globe. Two nights ago in the beachside town of Varkala, my friend Cate, a shop-keeper and I started a game. Cate volunteered her Australian status fairly early in the game, which got the usual smirk from the shop-keeper and a quick discussion of how well India is currently doing in an important cricket match against Australia. We bounced back to me and after confessing I wasn't German, I threw out the hit that I came from the 2nd biggest country in the world. I think this is right, though maybe Canada is #3. This is a detail I can be hazy about however without too much chance of being corrected. Once we ran through the U.S., France and Spain as options, I began to tire, so confessed my Canadian citizenship. The shop-keeper was surprised at Canada's largesse, then puffed out his chest and proudly declared 'India, we are #8 in size but #2 in population'. I nodded and tried to look impressed, but the dialogue in my head was more along the lines of 'yes, your country is full-to-bursting with people, so keep your pants on and let's practice some population control'.

There are over 1 billion people who call India home, and they speak some 200 languages. In my fist week in Mumbai as I attempted to acclimatize to the endless crowds of humanity, I swear it felt like I was shoulder to shoulder with at least a half billion of them at any one time. No matter what time of day it is, there are people absolutely everywhere. In the pitch-black of night, people stroll along inner-city highways as though they're out for a walk in the park. And on a Sunday night at 10pm when most Canadians would be tucked up in bed, the sidewalks of Mumbai are absolutely heaving with people, and some livestock as well. Families out for a bit of ice-cream. Clusters of men spill out of store-fronts, and young boys, deep in conversation, stroll happily along the road, arm-in-arm. Small children from the slums sit curbside by an open-fire, trying to keep warm. And a half-dozen cows, for good measure, diminishing their holy status somewhat in my eyes, by feasting on that's day's garbage on the sidewalk.

The abundance of people naturally affects traffic. For anyone who complains about traffic in Toronto, myself included, suck it up, crybabies, you've got it easy. The air rings continuously with honking horns. A couple touts on a horn alerts slow vehicles to get the heck out of the way. On the backside of trucks the public is actually encouraged to use their horns, as 'Horn Please' is painted on the back door of every truck. It confused me for a time, but I'm now getting it, I think. How's a truck supposed to know it's cramping the style of another vehicle unless it's informed via the honk of a horn? It actually makes a lot of sense, when you think about it from that perspective. And the attitude of drivers in Mumbai seems to be doggedly optimistic. They simply trust that the flow of traffic will swell to accomodate them, and where a second before there was room for a thin man on a bicycle, suddenly there's space for a taxi to make its way through. Sitting in the back of the taxi is dramatic at first, but you begin to trust in the Hindu God of Traffic (his name is escaping me at the moment), and just settle back for the show, which is always fascinating.

At times though, I really did feel like person number one billion and one, while travelling around Mumbai. Farah and I spent a day and a half in the suburbs of Mumbai, shopping for wedding paraphanalia with her Mom and Aunt. It was a fantastic break from being a tourist, flexing shopping muscles that have been atrophying recently, but there's no chance this white chick blended into the suburban crowds. In India the people have a very natural curiousity about eachother - I suppose with this many people knocking against eachother, there's almost an anonymity in the crowd. As Canadians, we're quite reserved and discreet about examining our fellow humans - the perusal is typically conducted out of the corner of your eye and the recipient of the examination is usually none the wiser. In India, the open stare is very natural and not considered rude. So walking through a busy suburban market, it felt like one hundred sets of eyeballs were trained on me at all times. And when I was having a bad hair day and sweating from hard-core shopping, I just wanted to scream 'You're not seeing me at my best. Come back later for the 8:00 show, I will have showered!'

So I wouldn't suggest a visit to Mumbai if you're craving solitude, but if you're in the mood for some people-watching, there's probably no better place in the world.