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Impressions of Bombay?

It’s almost too much to take in!Ìý Bombay (now re-named Mumbai, incidentally) is the brashest and most noisy of all the big four Indian cities.

It is where the Bollywood film industry is based, and where the financial markets are housed, so it is fantastically rich.

But, what’s more obvious is that there are a staggering eighteen million people crowded into this small peninsula, and much of the population is composed of unregistered, desperately poor migrants.

In fact, over half the people here are so poor that they are completely outside the tax system.

So… overwhelming?

Well, you get used to anything I suppose, but the sight of babies sleeping on filthy pavements with no shelter at all and with traffic blaring past within inches of them shakes your belief in things.Ìý

Also, the Bombay rat is a pretty big creature compared to the urban rats of Staffordshire towns! They can be as big as a small cat.

And, on the plus side…?

The life of the city is really vibrant.Ìý It is the most cosmopolitan and free city in India – here you find massive fashion shows, arts festivals (Bombay painters are among the most collectible in the world), and some incredibly cool clubs and bars.Ìý

The history of the city is intense too, with everything from first-century Buddhist cave-temples to the British-era architecture.Ìý There’s nothing sleepy about his town.

Have you forgotten Staffordshire completely then?

I’ll never forget!ÌýBut, strangely there are a few things which are memory-joggers.Ìý Many of the British neo-Gothic buildings here used Minton tiles for their floors – every time I visit Bombay University, it’s like being back home!Ìý

Also, it’s a little-known fact, but the Stoke firm of HR Johnson Tiles is the main sponsor of the Mumbai fire brigade – but this isn’t so strange once you realise Johnson’s have a huge factory in the city.

Anything you miss?

Well, football of course. The local papers report on the Premiership, but cricket is king here, so I have to log on to the internet to find Port Vale’s results.

I often go to see the Indian national champions, Mahindra United, play, but, as I say, football is not regarded much in Bombay. Mahindra United’s ground is a lot smaller than even the likes of Stafford Rangers’.

Bombay has been shaken by occasional bombs and riots in the last few years. How do you feel about that?

I was in London during the IRA campaigns; I think city-dwellers just have to live with that kind of threat.Ìý The thing is that so many different communities are jammed into this small space, and, most of the time, that means you’re in this constant wonderful kaleidoscope – there seems to be one festival after another here. But, yes, at times, it has turned ugly.

How do you spend your time?

Watching cricket!Ìý Seriously though, I have my freelance journalism work, a blog (on which I comment on life in Bombay), and I’m writing a book about the city from a Firangi’s point of view.Ìý

Firangi??

That’s the Hindi word for a European foreigner.Ìý

The city is just so diverse and India itself is just so complex that it will take years I think for a foreigner like me to come to grips with it.Ìý But I’m trying.