Saturday Art Gallery Adventure
I made a solo voyage into South Mumbai. I went to the CRY offices and met my new friend Melissa, a CRY employee. She’s arranging my visit into Maharashtra. She and I talked for quite a while about CRY, India, and all India’s problems. This is interesting stuff.
I went to some art galleries and wished I had enough money. I contemplated what a cruel irony it was to talk about people starving in the countryside and peasants flocking to Mumbai to live on the sidewalks, and then to waste a leisurely Saturday afternoon perusing expensive artworks. This is just the way the world works. Then I sat here and read a book.
This is Marine Drive, and it’s lined with some of Mumbai’s fanciest hotels. At night these lights are called the Queen’s necklace.
When it started to get dark, I went to one of these fancy hotels -- the Intercontinental -- that cater to the young international jet set, and had some beers and read the newspaper on the painfully stylish rooftop bar. There really is such a thing as the international style, with its simple lines and sleek, minimalist design, and this hotel was emblematic. I could've been at the W in NYC. Playing on the Intercontinental's stereo was the soundtrack for such venues, the kind of electronic lounge music with simple lyrics in various languages. Thievery Corporation is probably the most famous group creating this type of music. The bar served sushi, a rarity in Mumbai with its power cuts (power cuts are bad for keeping raw fish eatable), and all regions were represented on the extensive drinks menu. Budweiser represented American beer. Of course there were also fruity vodka martinis and cosmopolitans. I had a Corona, then a Carlsberg (Danish beer), then a Kingfisher (undoubtedly the market leader in Indian beer; it's also half as cheap as imports because India puts such high import tariffs on imported liquor. Maybe you've heard that the U.S. and Europe have filed a W.T.O. complaint about this?)
Out the window on the left you can kind of see the Queen's Necklace. In the dry season, there is no roof on this bar, but the rainy season is approaching so they've put this tent roof up. These plastic windows kind of spoiled the view.
Queen's Necklace from the Intercontinental's rooftop pool. I didn't swim.
I went to some art galleries and wished I had enough money. I contemplated what a cruel irony it was to talk about people starving in the countryside and peasants flocking to Mumbai to live on the sidewalks, and then to waste a leisurely Saturday afternoon perusing expensive artworks. This is just the way the world works. Then I sat here and read a book.
This is Marine Drive, and it’s lined with some of Mumbai’s fanciest hotels. At night these lights are called the Queen’s necklace.When it started to get dark, I went to one of these fancy hotels -- the Intercontinental -- that cater to the young international jet set, and had some beers and read the newspaper on the painfully stylish rooftop bar. There really is such a thing as the international style, with its simple lines and sleek, minimalist design, and this hotel was emblematic. I could've been at the W in NYC. Playing on the Intercontinental's stereo was the soundtrack for such venues, the kind of electronic lounge music with simple lyrics in various languages. Thievery Corporation is probably the most famous group creating this type of music. The bar served sushi, a rarity in Mumbai with its power cuts (power cuts are bad for keeping raw fish eatable), and all regions were represented on the extensive drinks menu. Budweiser represented American beer. Of course there were also fruity vodka martinis and cosmopolitans. I had a Corona, then a Carlsberg (Danish beer), then a Kingfisher (undoubtedly the market leader in Indian beer; it's also half as cheap as imports because India puts such high import tariffs on imported liquor. Maybe you've heard that the U.S. and Europe have filed a W.T.O. complaint about this?)
Out the window on the left you can kind of see the Queen's Necklace. In the dry season, there is no roof on this bar, but the rainy season is approaching so they've put this tent roof up. These plastic windows kind of spoiled the view.
Queen's Necklace from the Intercontinental's rooftop pool. I didn't swim.
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