Three sons

Oh, please, don’t ask me to choose.  It’s like picking your favorite child. It just isn’t done. Besides, think of the psychiatrist bills to battle the neurosis of those that are not chosen.

But Choose I must.  It seems there is this “thing” going around–not lethal but very infectious–and I have been intentionally exposed by my friend Mark over at Travel Wonders of the World.  Well, since Mark is a good friend (I’ve guest blogged for him about Bayeux  and Canyon de Chelly,  and he wrote about Mark Twain for me and leaves comments frequently here), I am honored.

The “thing” is a My 7 Links meme started by Tripbase Blog. Bloggers are asked to list posts that fit into 7 categories, as you will see below.

So happy reading.

1. My Most Beautiful Post

I have borrowed a lot of other people’s pictures for posts (using Flickr, usually),  I proudly present a post where I took all the pix–10 + Reasons to Travel to New Zealand. In such a beautiful place, how can you NOT take beautiful pictures?  The technical standards are not tops, because these are all scanned from print, but nevertheless…I think the post looks pretty good.

2. My Most Popular Post

Five American Road Trip Books and The List.  I wrote this one not long after I started the blog and it continues to draw readers every month. Why? People like road trips, and people like “best of” lists.

(Incidently if you measure popularity by number of comments, that would be The Perfect French Movie, which inspired beaucoup people to opine about their favorite french movie.)

Mumbai

3. My Most Controversial Post

Easy.  Sometimes when I write a negative review, somebody (namely the author) jumps to the defense, but generally I’m positive and not controversial. However, when it came to the movie, Slumdog Millionaire, while I enjoyed the movie, I could not resist pointing out that I have no desire to visit Mumbai, India.  That created a mini firestorm, which was partially quenched when Monica Bhide wrote two guest posts defending her Mumbai (Bombay).

4. My Most Helpful Post

Since I hope that EVERY blog post I write is helpful in some way, it is difficult for me to choose, but relying on the number of viewers and commenters, I would say that readers have found Ten Places to Eat Cheap (er) in Paris has been majorly helpful to them. (So much so that I have adapted the post, added pictures, and published it as an e-book which is available on Kindle or at the Barnes and Noble Store.)

5. A Post Whose Success Surprised Me

I suspect school assignments may be resonsible for searches that land on the post on Hiawatha , and I know that giving away a prize is going to make a temporarily popular post. As I mentioned, list posts are popular, which made 3 Best Travel Secrets of Greece a winner. But none of those are surprising. From time to time a post draws enormous traffic for no discernable reason.

Ohio Grave of Civil War Veteran, Henry Allen Butts

The one that surprised me was a personal Veteran’s Day tribute to men in my family who have served in United States armed conflicts.  I would like to think it was my masterful writing, but I suspect the popularity might be caused by the fact that my great-grandfathers surname was Butts. What do you think?

6. A Post I Don’t Feel Got the Attention It Deserved

Oh, dear. NONE of my posts ever reach as many people as I would like.  I’m sharing some of the greatest writers of travel literature and travel-inspirational fiction, or movies that you must see, and I want EVERYONE to know. Enough whining–since I have to choose just one, I’ll say Sweet Read About Paris. David Leibovitz writes an hysterically funny guide to living in Paris. Plus there’s lots of chocolate.

7. The Post I am Proudest Of

For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go.  I travel for travel’s sake.

Robert Louis Stevenson said that in his classic travel book, Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes. But you have to read my post to get the entire context of his quote which has a sharper edge than the excerpt. I like this post because it focuses on the job at hand–instead of wandering off point as I am wont to do. And it introduces a book that I really adored.

Note to other blog posts at A Traveler’s Library. I’m just kidding–I really like YOU the best!

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And there you have it. My little family of Seven Links from past posts. I hope you enjoy them, and will share your thoughts below. Agree with my choices? Have your own favorites?

I hereby pass the 7 Links Baton to the following 5 wonderful bloggers, and hope you will check them out, also.

Edie Jarolim at Will My Dog Hate Me (Edie is a travel writer as well as a dog slave.)

Kerry Dexter at Music Road  (If you have not met Kerry here before, you were not paying attention.)

Sheri Wallace at Road Trips for Families (Sheri has an empire of road trip blogs, but this is the flagship.)

Kristen Gough and her fun family food blog, My Kids Eat Squid. (Kristen has also guest-posted at A Traveler’s Library on a variety of places)

Melanie McMin, The Frugal Kiwi. (How appropriate. I started this post with a photo-post from New Zealand, and I end with a recommendation of a blogger who lives in New Zealand. This useful and entertaining blog comes with chickens, honey bees, felted crafts, food, and home decor!)

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Today Monica Bhide tells us about her own experience in the slums of Mumbai.

Americans find some familiar sights in Mumbai--McDonald's.

I went to Dharavi once, it is said to be the largest slum in Asia and it is located in Mumbai.  I went there because I was told I could buy a leather jacket for a good price. I stepped out of my car and saw kids playing in absolute filth. I was holding my young baby in my arms. I could not stop staring. They stared back, smiled and waved at the baby and kept on playing. I stood there, unable to move, unable to react, I just stared. Such horrid poverty, I had never seen anything so bad in all my life. And yet the kids played, oblivious to me and my thoughts. I went to the closest vendor and bought a jacket. I paid full price, although bargaining is the name of the game here.  I couldn’t bring myself to ask them to reduce the price. My family and I walked back to the car. The kids were still there, still laughing and my brother in law remarked – they are poor but laughter is free, right?  Before I got in the car, I cried so hard, I threw up several times. It was  gut-wrenching as a mother,  to see these little ones in this filth. I wanted to give money but was told not to – “A  hundred others will come and we cant help them all.” So we left, as I quietly dropped a few hundred rupees on the ground before sitting in the car.

Regarding Slum tours, I am not sure what value they provide. People want to go and see other people’s misery? If people want to help the slums, find an organization that does good work and work with them.  But if you just want to go and visit, on your own, guess what … poverty isn’t contagious. You can visit it, if you have the stomach to see how hard life can be for some people. I was on the periphery of the slums for my visit and I still cry when I think of some of the things I saw that day. But trust me, that will never, ever stop me from visiting Mumbai.

You see, the city compels me return, to learn from it,  to write about it. It has stolen my heart.

Monica Bhide

Photograph by Monica Bhide

Thanks, Monica for sharing your love of Mumbai. And how about you, readers?  Do you have questions for Monica? Do you see Mumbai differently now? Please leave a comment. And if you want to share what you have read, click on one of the social networking buttons below.

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Our guest today is Monica Bhide, a fine writer and an expert on Indian food. Her latest  work is Modern Spice. Monica wrote a moving essay on her blog which was posted at Facebook after the terrorism attack on Mumbai. I knew that she might have some different ideas than those I came away with from Slumdog Millionaire. Today and tomorrow she responds to my original post.

I was not born in Mumbai nor did I grow up there. I have never lived there for longer than a few months at a time. And yet, as a writer, it is the destination that I have written about the most.I have written love stories in yearning for the city’s seafood, I have written essays on my Mumbai-based idols, I have written pieces on how to shop in Chor-Bazaar, the Thieves Market, what to order at the Taj and the craziness of the fish markets. Mumbai has given me inspiration, it has given me dreams, life-long friends, a zest for learning the local language so I could understand all the bad words being hurled around by street kids, and it gave me the love of my life – my husband.

What is it about this city that makes everyone who lives there call it “Amchi Mumbai” (My Mumbai) and what is it about this city that makes people like me lose their hearts somewhere between the street food vendors and the glamorous shopping arcade at the Oberoi?  The short answer is the people. They have a spirit and a love of life unlike I have ever seen. They have a determination to make their city thrive, no matter what.  And I think this is what was central to Slumdog Millionaire.. the spirit of the people, it is why the movie succeeded, I believe.

To your question of not wanting to visit after you saw the movie, well, I can understand why. But if you feel that Mumbai is only about those slums, you couldn’t be more wrong.  Yes, there are slums in Mumbai, but that is just one part of the city. There are also glorious monuments, fantastic eateries, and places where the real estate is more expensive than in Tokyo. That is also Mumbai.  Mumbai is India’s nerve center, much like New York City is to the US.

There have often been comparisons made between the two major metros: they are the financial capitals – NYC has Wall Street, Mumbai has Dalal Street; they have major populations – Mumbai was 14 million at last count; they are melting pots of cultures and languages; they are home to major food establishments and businesses; they are cities where dreams come to build a life; they are places where even wanderers can find a home.

There are differences:  Mumbai is also the host for India’s movie industry, has strong religious undercurrents, and yet Mumbaikars are equal opportunity devotees and the Lord Ganesh offers his blessings to one and all, religion not withstanding; and monsoons still define the way of life.   I have seen movies about gangs in NYC, about the people who live under the city.. that does not stop me from wanting to visit what I consider to be an absolutely glorious city – I just stay away from the areas that I feel l don’t belong in or want to see particularly.

Tomorrow Monica tells us about her encounter with one of those areas of Mumbai that deeply affected her.  If you like what you are reading, please click on one of the social networking buttons below.

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She says of herself: ” I love tradition but embody change.
I respect technique but am playful.
I eat locally but cook globally.
My writing reflects food and culture and its affect on our lives. ”

Come back Friday to see how Monica Bhide adds spice to our conversation.

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Mumbai Stop Light

Welcome to A Traveler’s Library. If this is your first visit, I hope that you will stick around. Be sure to read the two response posts to this one, which I link at the end of the article. And if you are curious about that book mentioned in the first paragraph, it is about the Dominican Republic.

I recently finished a wonderful book that killed any desire I might have had to go to the place featured, and then I saw the Academy Award winning movie Slumdog Millionaire, which definitely did not make me want to visit Mumbai.  I began to think about the anti-travel movie. And the don’t-go-there book.

Is there such a thing? Although I have not read the book that Slumdog was based on, I have read comments that say it portrays Mumbai as even grittier than the movie. Does this make me want to travel there?

Controversy still rages (on Twitter for instance) about the depiction of Mumbai in the Academy-award winning picture.  Most Indians whose comments I have read are not happy. One said on Twitter, “Would you like it if America were portrayed by a movie that showed only the slums of New York?” Uh, well, there have been quite a few movies that do not show America in the best light. But perhaps because movies set in India are rarer in the United States, the impact of Slumdog has been greater. American movies, set in America, are widely viewed around the world, the good, the bad and…all that.

But back to the question of whether Slumdog Millionaire might make people actually want to go to Mumbai. I began to hear another discussion which caught me by surprise.  Slum tours, it seems, are newly chic. Some call this kind of tourism ‘Poorism.’

Do the profit-making companies that lead these tours actually give back to the communities as they claim? What motivates people to go on such tours? Is it voyeurism? Isn’t all travel ultimately voyeurism? Do the slum tourists come away changed in any way? Will they be more sensitive and generous in the future? Will the inhabitants of the slums learn how to make a legitimate buck off the tourists, or will the bad guys among them simply hone their pickpocket skills?

Eric Weiner, author of The Geography of Bliss, discussed the tours in a 2008 New York Times article. You can learn more about one of the tour companies that he discusses, Reality Tours, at their web site.

For now, I only know that for me, I am not interested in visiting a place to look at the lives of the poorest, and I am wary of traveling where I fear that I will be isolated in expensive resorts or hotels from the regular street life because it is unsafe, unhealthy or simply unsavory.  Call me unadventurous, but that’s my thought.

I am sure of one thing…the people who run tours in the slums of Mumbai are going to do a lot more business because of Slumdog Millionaire. As to the two main questions here–whether I am totally missing the point of Mumbai, and whether slum tourism has a place– I have an open mind. So educate me. Leave a comment and let me know your thoughts.

Oh, I mentioned a book up there in the first paragraph. I’ll get around to that soon.

See the posts that followed this one when Monica Bhide replied with her take on Mumbai in two parts. And if you enjoy what you see at A Traveler’s Library, please subscribe by RSS or e-mail–you’ll see opportunities in the right hand column. The link attached to the title of the movie will take you to Amazon where you can buy the DVD. It won’t cost you any extra, but it will earn a few cents for A Traveler’s Library. Thanks.

Photograph by Mike Powell, Flickr, Creative Commons license

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