A PitStop in Mumbai

City Skyline

Unwanted quickly smudged away face paint, over-enthusiastic cricket lovers, fishy food, and goofy company. That is how I spent my 5-day pitstop in Mumbai.

After kicking off the summer festivities in Chicago and 18 hours of flight time from ORD (Chicago) with a 4-hour layover in DBX (Dubai), I touched down in BOM for my 2nd visit since August 2020 and my first with relaxed Covid-19 restrictions. Mumbai, Bombay, City of Dreams – call it whatever you want - it is not a travel destination for me, for me it's Home.

My food-filled first day began at Kyani Bakery, spanning 118 years and counting. It is Bombay’s oldest Iranian bakery/café. We spent the morning chatting about his work, family, and life over the past 16 weeks.

My favorite restaurant and it's not even close:

That evening, I took part in what is now a family tradition on the day I return from college - eating Butter Pepper Garlic Crab and Squid Koliwada at Trishna with my aunt and uncle. Trishna is my favorite restaurant in Bombay and serves the best seafood that I have ever eaten. Trishna has a peculiar way of operation, or at least it may seem that way if you are not from India. My uncle has been eating at Trishna for nearly 30 years. His patronage is frequent enough that it leads to certain perks. The best of these is that whenever I want (so long as I mention his name) I will secure a reservation or they will ensure that I am accommodated in minutes, despite seemingly at bottleneck capacity.

A funny, at the time, embarrassing story from the early days:

When I was about 11 or 12 I went to Trishna with my cousin who was interning at the time. With the, inspired idea of trying something new we ended up over-ordering and the bill came to an amount larger than my cousin had anticipated. In short, we did not have enough money to cover the bill. Thankfully, due to the excellent social credit my uncle had built over the years, the manager allowed us to cover what we could and trusted us to pay the difference the next time we or my uncle went back – we did not wait long and instead asked our chauffeur to front us the money and repaid him when we got back home later that night.

To those unfamiliar with India’s ins and outs, this is how a lot of things work – convenience stores and chemists often sell products on credit and send a long bill at the end of a given month. Trust is a big factor in our society but, more than that convenience, with 20 million people running around Bombay, there is not a second to lose!

Post Trishna Activities:

Just as I was about to head to bed in an attempt to cure my jet lag, a friend rang and whisked me off to his building where I hung out with him and a few of our other friends until the wee hours of the morning, not sleeping before eating a spicy mushroom roll at Rahul’s. Rahul’s is Malabar Hill and South Bombay heritage – the single restaurant open in the area until 1 am and a local hotspot. When my friends at university ask me what I do back home, this is it - I spend it eating great food and hanging out in the compound or on the terrace of a building, just talking and laughing before we inevitably decide to find a food spot. Normally we will also find a time to play football or cricket, but this pitstop unfortunately did not include that.

The Colorful & Noisy Highlights of My Trip:

Stepping into the stampede on Marine Drive, I scrambled across to the pavement with my friend. The pavement and road were filled with thousands of people hurriedly making their way to one of the gates of Wankhede Stadium. There are your enthusiastic match goers, hawkers yelling out prices of team jerseys and flags, and small children running around asking for food, water, and in what are generally fruitless attempts someone’s newly purchased jersey or flag.

As we slowly made our way to the gate, I heard a voice from behind me, “Bhaiya rok lo” Brother stop, and without realizing, almost in a hazy flash, there was a streak of white paint across my face. The man held out a paintbrush with an orange coat next – my friend loudly said, “he will make you pay after, don’t do it” and that was enough for me to come to my senses and realize that I did not want random paint on my already acne-troubled face, especially of questionable quality and of the opposition’s primary color. Hurriedly asking him to wait, I began wiping the paint off my face. White paint was now across my hands. I frantically tried to rub it off, but having no luck, I was forced to wait until we were inside the stadium, where I found a bathroom and ultimately succeeded in washing my hands and face.

MI Vs SRH @ Wankhede

Wankhede is a noisy, sweaty, and a tad uncomfortable stadium right in the heart of Mumbai. It encompasses the cricket mania India finds itself perennially trapped in. Be it a Mumbai Indians game or the Indian national team, the crowd is always up for it. You will always find over-enthusiastic fans who will blow their trumpets from start to finish, be it for a boundary, wicket, or a solitary run. We came across 11 of these fans, 10 of whom were devoid of trumpets. They made up for it by parading a massive, printed sign with unfortunate spelling errors. They decided to move over right in front of us, forcing us to move seats to a slightly lower level – fine for us, as there was a better breeze due to the lack of direct covering from the stadium’s concrete structure. 5 minutes past and there they were again, signaling each other to move into the very row we had shuffled into, their fruitless attempts to get on camera finally worked when they moved back to their original position.

Can you find the Typo?

Yes, this was mildly annoying, but if you haven’t encountered a set of disruptive fans, you have not truly been to a cricket match in Mumbai. The atmosphere in the air is what transcends these, in retrospect minor ‘inconveniences’. As aforementioned, every small win is cheered and celebrated. This leads to constant energy and buzz, which makes anyone’s experience all the more memorable.

The next day, I visited my father’s office just behind my high school. It was nice driving by the ~ 160 year old heritage school, although I did not indulge in a quick visit inside. The reason I was at my dad’s office is for 2 reasons, neither of which, admittedly, are purely to spend time with my dad. It is the coffee from Coco Café, the renowned Vietnamese Iced Coffee, the very place I visited the morning I landed in Mumbai before breakfast at Kyani. However, the best part of my dad’s office is that it is located opposite the best spicy Chicken Schezwan roll I have eaten. A local vendor stall bang opposite my dad’s office gate makes it live in front of you on a tiny tava (Indian cooking pan, generally used for chapattis or rotis), the blend of signature spices makes the wait in the scorching heat worthwhile. The roll defines everything I love about Indian street food – spicy, flavorsome, not necessarily the most hygienic, but just packed tightly with meat, sauces, and spices.

The rest of my stop, which covered about 48 hours, was spent catching up with old family and friends.

Today, I packed my backpack – this is something that I refuse to do until I am about to walk out the door. I hate the paranoia of not knowing where something is only to find it tucked away at the bottom of my bag – something I desperately need to work on!

I wrote some final notes in my travel journal and got ready to leave. The first of the 3 phases of my summer is right around the corner, and I could not be more excited, even before jumping on the plane, I am ready to touch down in Bali, the supposed tropical paradise. Time will tell if it lives up to the hype.

The next time you hear from me, I will hopefully be on a beach, legs outstretched or by the window of a villa overlooking the Bali Sea.

Sunrise from Home