Mumbai Music

I grew up living in a city of 20.5 million people, living in 230 square miles. Thirty two percent are living under the poverty line, surviving, on less that a dollar a day. The human spirit is literally palpable in the heavy humid air of Bombay, an odorous mix of sweat and the city.

My best friend, a born and bred New Yorker who moved to Bombay when she was twelve, now acts as a faux advisor to fellow foreigners. She tells the incoming immigrants how you have to tune out the sound of the starving. The begging taps on the car window, homeless children playing in the street, you have to forget about the melody of Mumbai for a while.

The high school we went to, the American School of Bombay, was for all of the city’s foreign nationals or expat Indians (other Indians who’d forgotten how to be Indian like me). It was in what would be considered a commercial district. Large open grounds with a few shiny business buildings springing out of them. It was where the stock exchange was, two of the most well known private schools, and the new U.S. embassy was in construction. Yet none of these is what the neighborhood was known for. A few blocks from our school is Dharavi, with an estimated population of between 600 thousand and over a million people, they can’t really say for sure. So, every day when we would leave school through security gates, where security was Indian men wearing U.S. flag pins on their uniforms, and take the drive home. There was always a red light at the end of the road, and in Bombay a red light means you turn away from the windows, and ready yourself for the possibly barrage of the poor. Near one of the largest slums in Asia, this light always guarantees them. That combined with rush hour traffic, meant a good five minutes at this light every school day. This is why my friend has learned so well how to tune out the tapping.

My friend had another way to survive the constant guilt. We had another rule. If we ever had food or drinks when we arrived at the light, we would hand them out the window immediately. We road home together after some sport practice, and as always the light caught us. A young boy, he looked twelve but with the malnutrition the children growing up in slums face he could have easily been fifteen or sixteen. He left a group of younger children and tapped on our car window. The moment we heard it my friend pointed at the large plastic bottle of water I had been drinking since after practice. I handed it to him immediately. He smiled, his eyes shown slightly hazel, blending with his tanned brown skin. But before he sipped the bottle, he took it over the young boys he had been standing with, making sure everyone one of them got the water they craved. By the time the bottle got to him, there wasn’t a drop left. Still he smiled, holding hands with the youngest boys and walking away down the side of the road.

My friend hadn’t noticed the aftermath of our gift, and I didn’t know how to begin explaining it to her. How sometimes the symphony of life holds hidden moments of joy, and that sometimes you have to open up blocked ears or you’ll miss the magic of the music.