Our first meeting with Mumbai



Enjoying our first cold beer at our

terrace in Mumbai



We have arrived in Mumbai, our home for the next 9 months.

We includes myself; a female 28 year old from a small town called Aurland at the West coast of Norway, working in a Norwegian international company where I started as a management trainee, continued as a department business controller and now have been stationed in Mumbai. Along with me is my boyfriend of 9 years, who fortunately was willing to share this experience with me. I am quite convinced this will be the most exciting 9 months we will have experienced…

One can definitely say that the plane trip from Norway to India separated two very different worlds. Luckily, I was both aware of and quite prepared for this as I had visited the office here in India some weeks ago. During this last visit I got to meet the people I would be working with as well as arranging for an apartment and go through with the FFRO registration (which all foreigners have to do when arriving on other than tourist visas and this can be quite a dreadful, time consuming experience). I believe that this pre-visit really helped a control freak like me to better plan for the move and settle in when I arrived for my assignment.



Loooooving the food here!



These first 1,5 weeks have been quite busy and contained many impressions and experiences that it takes time to process, and which makes the mind a bit tired by the end of the day. I aimed at starting this blog immediately after arrival, though I was defeated by all the great impressions Mumbai has to offer a newly arrival in such way that my mind was not up to much else then relaxing with a cold beer and rest after the completion of a day at the office and arranging for other necessities at the apartment. But now I am slowly getting on top of Mumbai and will be fighting back to regain my energy and share my first experiences in this great city with you.

Mumbai is busy, dirty and at this time of year: wet, but I am LOVING it! I walk around all day with a smile on my face, thinking that I am just so lucky to be able to experience this. I think that the main reason for my loving relationship with this city is the people. They are just incredible. When I see the standard of living and poverty here paired with the great smiles I meet all around, I wonder why so many Norwegians, who never have to be worried about getting food on their table or clean drinking water, look so miserable??

I believe that the clue to not just surviving Mumbai, but also enjoying the city and leave with a much more open and gratifying mind is to appreciate all the positive moments that are present here – every day. Sure, there are many negative, terrible issues here that should not be ignored or forgotten, though I believe that to make the most out of the time here, the focus should be on all the good things that the city has to offer.

Our apartment is ½ hour drive away from work (that is if there is no traffic) meaning I get to spend at least 1 hour in the car on the “highway” everyday. This hour I spend observing… And smiling… To tell you the truth, I really enjoy my one hour car ride every day. There are so many fantastic experiences along the “highway”… Men taking a rest in the back of mini-trucks with their legs sticking out; bicycles looking like they originate from the 18^th century transporting 20 layers of egg on their rack; cows pulling wooden wheelbarrow-looking carriages; the goat living on the 2^nd floor balcony in one of the houses in the slum we pass, the family of four on the motorbike; the kids living under the bridge wearing their school uniforms and old fashion type backpack on their way to school in the morning (India has great focus on education and aim to get all children, rich or poor, through school); all the women/mothers wearing their beautiful saris, looking fantastic no matter how they live and level of poverty; the passenger on the motorbike holding up an umbrella in shelter of the heavy rain while driving in 50 km/h (tell me, how does physics work here…? I thought this would lead to them being lifted from the motorbike and fly up in the air, but doesn’t seem to be a problem); and off course the normal chaos on the roads here with cars, bicycles, motorbikes, rickshaws (3 wheelers that are very popular as taxis here) and even people walking on the highways. Now with the heavy rains you also get large holes in the road here as well as flooding in addition to people changing tires on their cars off course in the middle line out of the five on the highway. All together this makes for one great hour out of my day J

 



After getting to work today I must add another thing to attractions along the highway: monkey! This morning there was a monkey up on two legs watching the traffic from the concrete curb on the side of the road, he seemed so chilled and comfortable with the situation that he almost blended in with the people at the bus stop just next to him. I am starting to get a feeling that these nine months will include new surprises and fantastic observations on a daily basis!

As this is my first entry in the blog it is about my very first experiences here in Mumbai. There is however so much more to write about, but I think I will try to write separate articles where I address other issues such as the apartment, food here etc. If you are interested in more updates on how our life here in Mumbai evolves, feel free to subsribe to the blog below and I will keep you posted :) Also all comments are appreciated!