While it’s been weeks since I went to Mumbai for a short trip (for both business and pleasure), I’m taking the better-late-than-never on this (and other) blog posts. Also, am taking advantage of the office being closed for the next two days (not for Christmas, but because of local demonstrations due to the potential Telangana state creation…yeah, long story) to catch up on my beloved blog and kick in a New Year’s resolution early: blog regularly!
Anyway, onto the Mumbai trip.
The parentals and I headed to Mumbai for two days for the wedding of my father’s college friend and meetings with a business partner. Since the flight is only an hour and tickets are relatively inexpensive, we usually fly in and out on the same day, but decided to make a short getaway out of this particular trip. I have yet to really see the city, as most of my Mumbai trips are for connecting flights (and this visit hasn’t changed that fact), but it was nice to spend more than a few hours in the city that is referred to India’s version of New York City.
Our original flight was canceled, due to technical difficulties.  We got rebooked quickly on an express flight (note: no food, tiny plane, and middle seats), but since the flight was a mere hour, I didn’t mind at first. When we flew around for an additional hour due to the fog in Mumbai and arrived in the city 3 hours later than originally scheduled…I was a little peeved. Luckily, our suitcase rolled into the baggage claim quickly and we exited the airport into the balmy Mumbai night.
The crowd outside an airport in India is pure madness. Drivers and family members crowd the railing for a good view of the airport doors. Signs with hotel and passenger names line the railing, the names indistinguishable to my tired eyes. After scanning the signs for a good five minutes, we finally locate my father’s name (written twice, mistakingly) and walk around the railing to meet our driver and pour ourselves into the car to head to the hotel.
A short drive later (there are countless hotels within a 5K radiuds of the airport) and we arrive to the Hotel Orchid, Asia’s first certified eco-friendly hotel. The lobby was decked out for the holidays (complete with a Christmas tree made of poinsettias) and had the lovely smell of orchids. We were checked in quickly and whisked into a suite, where we dumped our belongings and promptly went downstairs to the hotel’s South Indian restaurant for dinner.
Spending most of this India trip in Hyderabad (which boasts some of the best food in India), I had low expectations of South of Vindhyas. I was pleasantly surprised to find that our waiter was Telugu (like us), and happily closed the menu as he and my mother chatted and selected the dishes for our meal: bhajees (mashed veggie patties that are fried and served), dahl (yellow lentils, a staple in our household), bisibela bhath (another Telugu speciality, rice cooked with tum dahl, veggies, and spices), navratna korma (spicy vegetable curry in a thick, flavorful gravy), chapathi (soft Indian bread, similar to tortillas), and fresh, homemade yogurt. The wine selection wasn’t bad (we enjoyed an Italian chianti), and were too full by the end of the meal to indulge in dessert. The entire experience was classical South Indian, to the rustic, villagesque decor (the waiters were in lunghis, the glasses and serving dishes were copper, and a small hut on the side of the restaurant housed the chef preparing the fresh breads over a tandoor), the copper pitcher and bowl that washes your hands with rosewater before and after the meal, and the absence of utensils (food is eaten with the hands in South India). The tasty meal put the P family into food comas and we fell asleep rather quickly after retiring to the room.
If I wasn’t so tired after the travel and meal, I would have definitely checked out the karaoke bar next to the restaurant and belted out a little Journey or Bon Jovi, but I’ll save that for another trip to Mumbai.
The next day, we ate a quick breakfast at the expansive buffet at the hotel and returned to the room to repack and get ready for the wedding. After pinning back my hair and pinning on my sari (a challenge after my large breakfast), we headed downstairs and into the waiting car to take us to the wedding, held in a hall about 5 minutes from our airport.
While I’ve been to my fair share of Indian weddings, this wedding was the first Kokkini Brahmin wedding I’ve attended. The bride and groom were performing their individual pujas in the same room (as opposed to separately), with the bride in clear view of the groom. In most of the Hindu weddings I’ve attended, the bride and groom are blocked from each other’s view by a sheet until the muhurtam, the auspicious time at which the groom ties the mangalsutram around the bride’s neck and the wedding band plays the loudest. There were other differences in this wedding from the others I’ve attended, but this stood out in particular.
As customary in all Indian weddings, guests were talking, milling around the circular hall, and leaving and entering from the room where breakfast was being served. The father of the bride (my dad’s friend from their IIT days) excitedly welcomed us and guided us downstairs to the food, which I attempted to decline but ended up with a plate of food and a cup of chai. We returned upstairs for the muhurtam, which in the Kokkini wedding meant the bride and groom placing flower garlands around each other’s necks. After witnessing this key event, we ducked out and back into the car for our hour-long drive to Thane.
While we never went into downtown Mumbai, we certainly saw our fair share of traffic (completely unavoidable in any metro area of India), the construction of miniature cities left and right (a trend I had seen all over Hyderabad). I marveled at the well-constructed roads and the following of traffic laws by Mumbai drivers, a stark change from the orgy of scooters, auto-rickshaws, cars, motorcycles, and cows crowding the glorified dirt paths called “roads” in the outskirts of Hyderabad. We finally arrived at hotel #2, the Satkar Residency. The hotel was surprisingly quiet, given that a wedding was taking place and a school was next door. In any case, I took advantage of the quiet and got through e-mails all afternoon, prior to our dinner that night (though I wish I took advantage of the hotel’s span and gotten a facial or massage).
The dinner with our business partners (also a family business, founded by the wife and husband and the daughter working there as well), held at the hotel’s restaurant The Scarlett Lounge, also had a good wine list (this time, we opted for an Australian cabernet sauvignon) and boasted Marathi and Indo-Chinese cuisine. The crumbled paneer-vegetable curry and tom yum soup were my favorites from the menu we sampled. While my chocolate mousse was nothing more than melted ice-cream, I thoroughly enjoyed the meal (and lamented that I left my running shoes in Hyderabad and couldn’t run off the two rich meals ingested in Mumbai).
The rest of the trip was nothing more than meetings at our partner and heading back to the airport, whose domestic lounge did NOT have a good wine list (I opted for lemon tea, while my father had beer), where we boarded the flight and headed back to the traffic, glorified dirt roads, and delicious food of home–Hyderabad.
Only to hop back onto a plane four days later and head to Ahmedabad…
