Farewell India

I start by writing a thank you to my hubby, I’ve enjoyed Marks Mumbai Madness and only wish I made the time to add more entries.….I’ve been one slack bum on it, or rather put my energy into work and not into something personally meaningful, that will create everlasting memories.

One of many personal lessons learnt over here.

It’s our last day in Bombay. We came not knowing what adventure lay ahead and it’s hard to imagine the new road ahead. We may be moving back into the same house, the same street, the same suburb, the same city, but we bring with us a ‘made in India’ addition. Our lives will never be the same again and I’m so excited.

We went to Barister Coffee, for our morning coffee this morning and took our coffee’s with the papers to the beach. Such a familiar thing to do, but we’ve never done it here. We were soon surrounded by kids with babies begging, it never ceases to break your heart, but somehow we now are hardened in our response and the time it takes to forget them. (We did give them Rs55 and the dregs of our coffee cups – Mark even made the little fella put the cups in the bin – a sight I’ve NEVER seen in this filthy place, he deserved Rs100!).

It’s been an amazing adventure and it really does make you appreciate the country we come from. To all Aussie’s who expect they’re owed something from the government, from society, from family - you need to get on a plane & experience India. See what true hardship is, and see the incredible innate human instinct of survival and need to strive for betterment for the future for their offspring. I’m not in favour of the Indian government ignoring these poor souls, but it does show how welfare can dilute this human instinct.

It still astounds me to see the basket weavers or flower stringers, smiling as they work on the road and pavement. They actually live on the same pavement, some of them have made their homes in the massive pipes, sit across from the railway near Dada – a scene I will never forget. They cook, bring up their babies, work, sleep and shit in absolute mess & poverty – yet they converse, laugh, sing and have no trouble whatsoever at procreating.

Today, we successfully found Katherine, our lovely non stop talking maid, a new home of employment. She’s loving life at the moment with all the goodies she’s keeping from us, although she’s genuinely upset that we’re leaving. We even received a call from our other little girl, Renuka to say bye from Israel and may have found her husband Roshan a job driving for Kaisa & Apurv. I swear, you could make a successful business out of passing around good house staff. I wonder if this will sound strange to us soon, but it’s so normal at the moment.

So I say a sad farewell to the place that captured our hearts and souls. A happy farewell to the same place that drove us insanely mad with it’s hypocrisy, noise and traffic. We’ll miss you India, your heartbeat that now pulses in our veins and can’t wait to come back.