On our second day in Mumbai we walked through the center of the huge metropolis, the Fort and Colaba districts. We checked out the Victoria Terminus (now officially called the Chhatrapati Shivaji)
, Mumbai University clock tower, the High Court, watched a league cricket match at the Oval Maiden Park, and then settled down for lunch at the Café Royal. Bill Clinton ate at this restaurant during a visit to India during his presidency-which meant placemats covered with articles about his visit, and a huge Clinton themed portrait on one wall. This is why I travel, because I never really thought I’d eat at a café in Mumbai with Bubba on the placemat. We intended to catch well-regarded 3 Idiots in the evening, but it was sold out, so we watched Toh Baat Pakki. Danthemanstan and I had both really gotten into Bollywood, and now we were in Bombay-so we were all about seeing some movies. Unfortunately, Toh Baat Pakki was a huge letdown compared to the great experience we had had thus far with Bollywood. It had very little English, no action, only two dance numbers (the other songs were like Enrique Iglesias videos), and we didn’t understand any of the jokes all the Indians were laughing at. The love triangle was easy to follow, but that barely made it an enjoyable experience. On the late walk home from the theater (it was a 23:00 showing) I was struck by the volume of people sleeping on the sidewalks or in parking lots. It was mostly single, young men-presumably homeless day laborers-but there were also some women and children-which was especially tough to see. Beggars are prevalent everywhere in India, but even on such a short trip, by the time we arrived in Mumbai, they tend to sort of fade into the Indian landscape. But this was the first time I had really walked around late at night and combining that with the size and prosperity of parts of Mumbai, and there were scores of homeless sleeping on the streets. India’s huge impoverished population really showed itself in Mumbai, and was shocking to say the least-even coming from China. India to me is such a stark, heart wrenching example of what happens when human demand outstrips resource supply and distribution. The walk through Mumbai’s streets at two in the morning quickly reminded me how fortunate I am.Even with the bad experience at Toh Baat Pakki the night before, Danthemanstan and I were both still very enthused about Bollywood (it is, after all, the biggest film industry in the world). After some research, we found out that there are no tours of the star’s homes, and the main studios can only be entered with written permission or a hefty bribe. So, for our third day in Mumbai we created our own tour of the star’s homes. We took the crazy cheap 7 Rs. train up to t
he outer suburbs on the Arabian Sea coast. With our list of addresses (partially from the Internet, partially from our hotel manager) we set off. We easily found the heavily gated homes of Shah Rukh Khan (SRK) and Amitabh Bachchan, the current and former king of Bollywood. The guards made sure that distant pictures were all that we got. We had by far the most fun at the house of Veer star Salman Khan. There was a group of maybe thirty faithful (mostly young men and teenagers) waiting en masse across the street from his beach view apartment. They claimed that he was out, and were waiting for his return. We didn’t wait that long, but did chat with a few of the teenagers (mostly just amazed we knew who he was) and got to see a guard chase off and swing his billy club at some fans getting a bit too close. We weren’t so successful in finding the stars of Bollywood’s leading ladies. There’s a tiny chance that the nice (but not movie star nice) apartment near a beach was Kajol’s (she was the leading actress in My Name is Khan). And there is no chance that the dirty, fairly run down apartment was that of a woman with the status of Aishwarya Rai-or she’s doing her very best to remain quite low-key. Even with the actress let downs, it was still an awesome way to spend a day and I bet my lunch money that you’ve never been Bollywood star stalking. We topped off day three in Mumbai in true Indian fashion, watching India hang on to beat South Africa in an international cricket match. Cricket=pure India.
me with other Salman Khan enthusiasts 
of dudes trying to sell you plastic horses walking in a circle. The mosque was pretty small and uninspiring, so I made it back through the gauntlet of beggars and hawkers and took a nice, long walk through the streets of Mumbai to the neighborhood of dhabi gat. Dhabi gat is known as Mumbai’s washing machine, as a huge percentage of the laundry in the city is done here (serviced laundry is a big thing in India). It was really cool to see the workers washing and hanging clothes and linens within the plenitude of washing pits. There was actually a sizable group of foreign and domestic tourists watching from a bridge, who knew that laundry was such a draw. As I boarded the train back, the man in front of me was porting a huge bag of laundry back into the center of town.In the late afternoon I made my way back to the Bombay High Court, to catch some live action. I watched the end of a trial regarding child support and division of assets regarding a divorce. Upon recommendati
on from a kind lawyer in the hall, I went up to the impressive, but noticeably worn, main courtroom, where two chief judges were hearing an appeal for unpaid salary and retirement benefits from an employee who had resigned. Both courtrooms were pretty interesting because of the huge stacks of books and papers that lined the walls and rested atop most benches and tables. Apparently, the Bombay High Court could use a file room or two. The bailiffs carrying swords and wearing traditional Indian soldier outfits were all sorts of fun. The trials seemed fairly informal, as the lawyers would interrupt each other frequently, and the judges often interrupted with questions or their own opinions. Our time in Mumbai ended as we boarded an overnight train south at the famous Victoria Terminus station.
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