Bombastic

[jawnbc]

So I went to India last week.




After many hours flight and some fitful sleep I hit the streets of Mumbai early on Sunday morning. On cue a wandering holy man offered both a blessing and a suggested amount to donate as gratitude for said blessing. That ain't no bhindi, muthafucka:



I spent the balance of Sunday staggering around this intense megalopolis. As the day wore on, it was less overwhelming.

The next day I was ready for the streets, and enjoyed a private tour of town (cost: $AU20). I got to see where a signficant portion of the the micro-economy--in the form of "laundry out" services--took place:



My hotel--Shelley's--was on the inner harbour; the tour included a stop on the Arabian Sea side of the peninsula:



Another highlights was the Jain temple, whose ornate structure really made me smile:



The next day was my day trip to Elephanta Island. The boatride offered a lovely view of the Gateway of India and the Taj Mahal Hotel:



On Elephanta itself, there was both infantile monkey masturbation



And the sort of family scene all-too-often advertised in spam



Still, the stone carvings in the temple were pretty kewl. Ganesh holds a particularly dear place in my heart:



By the time I got back to my hotel I was in need of a cold one. Sadly, there was not more Coke to be had, so the local substitute would have to do:



Shame they couldn't afford the b . . .

Comments

[danbearnyc.livejournal.com]

Is the Jain temple you visited anywhere their funeral temple? The Orthodox Jain is left out to rot, essentially, and his bones are picked apart by the local buzzards...

[jawnbc]

Dunno, but it was in a residential area, so I'd suspect not.

[danbearnyc.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. I just seem to be obsessed by South Asian death rituals. Swimming in the Ganges and all that.

[quetzalcoatl.livejournal.com]

I was wondering if you were mixing up the Jains (which evolved from Hinduism) with the Parsees, the decendants of the Zoroastrians who migrated to India from Persia, and formed the traditional commercial class of Bombay/Mumbai.

The Parsees have the Tower of the Winds in Mumbai where the bodies are left to be picked at by vultures and the like. I thought the Jains cremated, like Hindus.

[danbearnyc.livejournal.com]

You're probably right. I probably am mixing them. I read about them back in high school as a freshman (please don't ask how far back), and while I was always interested I never looked into them further.