Good bye India

After a stay of six months I left India on January 31 with mixed feelings. I was looking forward coming back home  but at the same time I was sad to take leave of many good friends of different parts of India. I wish to express my sincere greatfulness to all my friends for their support during my travel and period of practicum, for their hospitality and all kind of advices. I also wish to thank all readers of my blog, especially those who gave me support by writing critical or encouraging comments. I am sure that I will visit India again.

Please notice that I’ll be uploading additional photographs of my trip in the near future.

Leaving Valsad

Yesterday I left Valsad after finishing a three months internship there. I have undergone a very interesting training there in Gadhia Solar Energy Systems introducing me into the world of Business. Yesterday morning Ida who is leaving for Austria in mid of February and Valentin who is doing his civil service in the company dropped me at the station of Valsad.

It was quite a strange feeling somehow. I really would not claim Valsad as a place in which I could fall in love to. Still it was a strange feeling leaving the home I shared with Valentin and Ida for three months the last time. It felt strange driving from the place I called my ‘home’ for three months to Valsad the very last time. So often I was complaining about the overcrowded train from Valsad to Mumbai which was never running as the timetable pointed. On my last trip Western Railways had a special gift for me and the train was even more crowded as on all our trips to Mumbai. Apparently I was carrying more luggage than usual. The Indian Railways were obviously challenging me hard on my last trip.

The last week I am going to spend with friends in Delhi no, probably going to Pushkar again.

 

Dharavi | 5th Visit

This tour to Dharavi was not meant to take place. Last Sunday I went to Mumbai in order to pick up my laptop which finally could not be repaired. It cost me 1.600 kilometers journey on Indian rail already till I was finally informed that it wouldn’t be possible to repair my laptop. Still I did not get my laptop back because the guy was not there in the office although we had an appointment. He sincerely informed me that it was Sunday and on Sundays the office is closed. I wonder why he is telling me then one day earlier to come that Sunday.

So seething with rage I headed for Dharavi where I must be well known already. Again I got lost in the lanes where I was roaming around four times already. Again and again it is an interesting experience roaming through Dharavi although I have to say that the photography results of my first visit remain to be the most impressive.

From all the places in Dharavi this one above remains in my mind like no other. Poignantly this place stands for the destiny of those people living in slums like Dharavi. The pipe that can be seen here carries drinking water to the central part of Mumbai whereas most of the residents of slums have no access to clean drinking water. For them it often means a very long walk.

(happy) new year!

After almost two weeks of inactivity I am writing that post. Unfortunately the new year started with a hardware crash in my laptop exactly on 1st of January. Seems to be a delayed millenium crash or so. Anyway the problem seems to be pretty serious. Got the laptop to Mumbai for repair exactly one week ago and still it is not working but therefore it charged me 800 kilometers journey on Indian trains, two hotel nights and lot’s of time waste already. Consequently I am in quite a bad mood and working as well as updating blog and galleries has become quite difficult. The only good news is that all photographs are safe, thats all…

Anyway the Goa trip was really good we enjoyed new year on a big Goa Trance Rave and enjoyed till 9 AM in the morning. The trip back to Valsad was less comfortable. We went on a 15-hours bus trip and my knees were paining as they were squeezed somewhere under the front seat. Anyhow we were lucky to get back somehow and for a reasonable price.

Since our return to Valsad I made two trips to Mumbai already. On one of the trips I met Ayan a guy from Kolkata working as a Software Engineer in Bangalore right now. We went on another photo tour through Mumbai and covered Dharavi again and the Bandra Worli Sea Link in Mumbai which is a huge infrastructure project to connect the city of Mumbai with the western suburbs Bandra and Andheri via a huge sea bridge.

Go, go, Goa!

Well, quite spontanously me and Valentin decided to go to Goa yesterday. We’ve booked the flight just one day earlier for around 55 Euros what is amazingly cheap for a flight to Goa during this season and more than that we were flying with Kingfisher Airlines the best airline for domestic services you can imagine.

Arrived in Goa itself we rent two bikes and went to the north, near Vagator which is the most famous place if you wanna enjoy. The beaches are nice, the weather is cool and the parties we did not check yet. Surprisingly we met a fellow who was with us for the filmshoot in Mumbai again today, the world is just so small.

Well, still cannot imagine to be in Goa as we were still wondering what to do for new year two days earlier!

Merry Christmas!!!

Wishing all readers and supporters a Merry Christmas and lot’s of success in the New Year!

Another trip to Dharavi

Last weekend Valentin again went to Mumbai to meet some friends of ours on Friday and Saturday night and to visit Dharavi again. The trip to Dharavi was similar to our first trip one week ago. We wanted to see more of the slum and especially I wanted to do more photography there for a potential photo exhibition or illustrated book.

The happening that actually worth a report is our experience with the Indian Railways and Indian Police on the way back to Valsad as both proved to be really incompetent. On the internet we found the 23.35 train from Bandra Terminus to Valsad as the last available train on Saturday night. So we reached Bandra Terminus some minutes earlier, purchased tickets and were on our way to the platform. There was only one train there which was already about to move and we still had to run through the underpass. Confident that we would still be getting the train we were running as fast as possible and jumped on the moving train what is quite a normal procedure in India.

So somehow we got on the train but came to know that it was totally empty. We thought that there might not be that much travellers on a Saturday night so we did not question this any longer. But when the train stopped after a few kilometers and went back some meters things became really strange. We found ourselves in the washing bay. Now we were quite sure that this train would not be going to Valsad and walked all the way back to the station. Fortunately it was too long and and took the ticket seller to ask why he sold us a ticket for a train that was obviously not running but was mentioned in the online reservation system. We then came to know that our train has been rescheduled or whatever.

Anyway we had to spend the night there in the Bandra Terminal Building and wait for the first train the following morning. First we wanted to spend it on the platform but were told by some policemen that we would not be allowed to stay there but that it was possible to stay in the newly built terminal building. We went there, settled down were also other passengers were sitting and after some time we were asked by two police men to leave the station. They did not pay any attention to all the other passengers who were resting there and obviously we were really pissed. Not only because we did not have any other opportunity to sleep but rather because it was just us who were asked to go we got really pissed. We started arguing with the police men although it is quite senseless to argue with them because they are just so licentious. So also we did not give an inch as they usually stayed there but the bad impression about Indian police men stays.

Finally we got on the first train at 6.50 AM next morning where a stupid train conducter asked us to pay a penalty because our ticket that was for the last night train was not valid for that train. We came to know by another passenger that train conducters in India just have to charge a minimum of penalty fees per day and we just became another victim of their disposal.

Dharavi - Asia’s Largest Slum

Yesterday once again I wanted to attract notice to India’s underclass. I wanted to do some more documentary photography about the poor how they live, work and survife. We went to Dharavi. Located in the middle of Mumbai, India’s financial capital and a city where land prices are among the highest in the world Dharavi is called Asia’s largest Slum, probably the largest in the world. In fact there are even bigger slums but Dharavi remains unique. 

 

Sandwiched between Mumbai’s two major railway lines Western Line in the west, Central Line in the South, between the Mithi River in the north and Sion in the east Dharavi is home to more than one million people. Home to more than one million people on just 3 square kilometers. Dharavi has also lot’s of tiny manufacturing units spread all over the slum providing employment to many people over there. A large number of Mumbai’s garbage is recycled here. They live and work in one of Mumbai’s hottest real estate and the state government has plans to pull down the whole slum and develop a new township putting more than one million people on the streets.

After having some bad experiences with numerous begging children in Mumbai two weeks ago I was not quite sure what would I would be facing there in Dharavi - it would probably be a nightmare. Anyway we decided to go as I have read lot’s of interesting reports about it. And we were totally impressed by what we saw as it was not what we expected. Amazingly we did not meet a single begger over there but therefor plenty of laughing people, laughing children and hard working people. They welcomed us with open arms, we were walking into the manufacturing units, roaming through narrow lanes. I wasn’t scared at all, I was no longer afraid of being robbed as all the people there seemed to be very fair-minded. I guess the risk to be tricked or robbed is much higher in the touristic places than here there in Dharavi.

 

Anyway it was still ovious that we were in a slum. It is dirty, overpopulated and many of the housings are just sheet huts. The people who were living there are relatively poor, they do not have much but they have very big hearts.

I can only advice any Mumbai visitor to visit this place.

See my Dharavi Set on my Flickr Galleries for more pictures.

Booze out in Daman

Yesterday Valentin and I went to Daman to enjoy our free day there. Daman is a small former portuguese colonial town and around 30 kilometers south of Valsad. Actually Daman has not much to offer, there is not much left from the former portuguese flair and the beach is as dirty as in Valsad. The water quality must be of its finest around as Daman profits from its close situation to Vapi which just scored number five among the 10 worst polluted cities in the world. So the water must be full of chemicals toxic waste produced by all the chemical factories in Vapi. For sure a delicious cocktail. And this is what Daman is famous for, not waste water cocktails but alcohol in mass.

Gujarat the state where I stay at the moment is a dry state, means selling and consumption of alcohol is prohibited by law. But this does not mean that all Gujarati’s are clean, in fact some of them are worse drinkers than people elsewhere what becomes apparent when you are walking into one of the numerous bars in Daman. It is all about alcohol consumption but unfortunately there is nothing like clubs or so.

So after boozing here and there and having some really good food it turned 11 PM already. We came to know that now busses would be available this time. There was no life on the streets, no Rickshaw were inside and some people in front of the bar told us that we’d not be able to go back this night. But in fact we had to return as today (Sunday) is a working day and we had to be back to office by 8:30 AM. So we started walking towards the main Rickshaw stand of Daman not knowing how far it would be. After some minutes of walking a white Honda with loud music and two boozed guys stopped next to us. The guys were asking us where we’d be going and offered to carry us to the main Rickshaw stand. First they did not seem to be that much drunk so we got to the back seats also because we were lucky that there was someone to carry us we did not care much. After some meters already it turned out that both the guys where totally shit-faced. We just thought fuck, how can this dude still have control over his car.

Well somehow, I still wonder how, we arrived safely at the main Rickshaw stand. Luckily nobody was out on the streets. From the Rickshaw stand we had to take a Rickshaw long way back to Valsad what turend out to be quite expensive. So fortunately our well drunken driver sponsered us half the price for the ride back to our place.

One Weekend with the Stars in Mumbai

This weekend we decided to escape from the boring everyday life in our beloved place of Valsad. We this was Ida, Valentin and me, the three trainees from Europe and Badal, one of our chiefs in the company.
At around 5:30 PM finally we left the office heading towards Mumbai. We were going in Badal’s Toyoto Corolla what is a very good car on Indian roads. During the whole ride to Mumbai we were driven by two questions: Will we reach the club before closure time? And: Was it a good decision to go on car? It was Friday night and if you have bad luck you can easily spend 7 hours or more for the 180 kilometres to Mumbai. So Badal was driving his car as fast as the traffic situation allowed him to drive, overtaking right and left and wherever space was available. But every time when a brainless Indian truck driver who was just about to overtake another truck with a heartbreaking speed of 30 kilometres per hour was stopping us we were worried about our schedule.
Finally all the excitement was to no purpose, we reached our destination at 10:30 PM and even our stomachs could be satisfied on the way with a fabulous Non-Veg dinner.

We went to Poison, probably one of the best nightclubs in Mumbai with lots of sexy and dressed up Indian beauties and a 5 star ambience. Even Bollywood stars are a regular sight in Poison. And this is how the prices are over there, 20 € for entrance and 12 € just for a Wodka Redbull – more than a monthly salary of many Indians.
Anyway, this night we were in another India, hanging out with some of the hottest chic’s and the high society of Mumbai. The DJ was really good and we partied hard. Music was up-to-date as far as I can say. At least we have not been bothered with Backstreet Boys and Eifel 65 and all the other stars that seem to rock the Valsad Western Top 20 right now.
So we had a very good party… till 1:30 AM. It was just 1:30 and then the surprise… light on, music off – the club closes. We were just thinking what the shit is this… but well this is Mumbai. Most of clubs close 1:30 or even earlier as there are lot’s of restrictions by the local government.
Anyway we enjoyed and our boss was so kind to give us the Sunday off as we were intending to go for more party next night but when we were about to go for dinner we met one guy from the Bollywood film industries.

Already in my Lonely Planet Guide Book I have read that it could happen that you are being hired for a Bollywood film shoot when you are hanging out in Mumbai but I did not really expect that this would happen to us. But well, this trip to India is so full of surprises and unexpected things and this was just another unexpected experience we dumped in.
It was not a big Bollywood movie, just a soap for what they’ve hired us. The shoot took place in a shopping mall which has been turned into an airport. For the first few hours it was our job to just walk around and give the “airport” and international flair. For the last shots I have been turned into a steward. My suit did not fit me at all but obviously this was not very important. They are just crazy about westerners appearing on the camera, that’s all. We definitely had an interesting and funny experience also the story and set up was extremely kitschy.