Mumbai (formerly Bombay) India

This month marks my seventeenth visit to India. My first visit was in 1971 together with my dear German friend Gert. We flew from Berlin to Istanbul and then continued overland through Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and finally reached Bombay, India, now known as Mumbai. That trip marked my discovery of North Indian classical music and the bansuri-bamboo flute. Those were life-changing discoveries that have enriched my life ever since.

I toured India every year for ten years 2005-2015 with the Swedish Indian-Jazz-Fusion band Mynta. Those tours expanded my musical contacts in the Indian music community.

Almost exactly one year ago, I wrote a blog entitled “Why I continue to visit India.”  It gives a more detailed background to my continuing love of visiting India so many times. The blog link is here:  https://mazerandsmith.com/blogs/blog_post.cfm?gallery_ID=8789E223-9D38-C7CD-84616BE080E2E24E

What we’re doing here this year

India visit number seventeen is based on visiting good friends (including some 50-plus-year friendships), enjoying great food, playing music at every opportunity that arises, and including some tourist activities so that we’re not just staying in Mumbai. Our last few visits have involved Airbnb apartments. The one that Susan found for us this year is the best yet. It’s a two-bedroom, two-bathroom seventh-floor apartment, nicely furnished, with a view of the Indian Ocean, which is only a few blocks away. The apartment is owned by an Indian couple who live in the US, which they use when they visit India and otherwise rent to tourists like us who stay for at least a few weeks.

We will stay in Mumbai for three and a half weeks. After that, we will fly to the South Indian city of Madurai. Our dear friend David (also an Indophile since 1971!) has introduced us to friends in Madurai who show us around their famous city. They also plan to set up a presentation at the Madurai Music Academy to talk about our musical backgrounds. I am a longtime student of North Indian (Hindustani) classical music. The predominant style of music in South India is called Carnatic style. Carnatic musicians may be only superficially aware of Hindustani style. After all, South Indian languages and histories are different from North Indian. 

The difference between North and South Indian music traditions

In the 16th century, North India was conquered by the Mogul Persian Islamists. They ruled North India until the British invaded and made India part of the global British Empire upon which “the sun never set.” Because Islam prohibits artistic representations of people in paintings, sculptures, and art in general, this prohibition also changed North Indian music. Rather than the music telling stories from Hindu classics and representing various Hindu gods and goddesses, North Indian music under the Moguls became abstract…art for art’s sake rather than symbolically representing historic or religious figures as is still predominant in Carnatic music. Applying that Islamic restriction on Hindustani music has made it easier for me, a classically-trained American jazz musician, to approach Hindustani music more easily from melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic aspects, without the need for the historic and religious aspects of Carnatic music.

Indian Cuisines

Mumbai is a city of at least twenty million inhabitants (nobody knows exactly how many people live here). It is home to Bollywood, the world’s largest film industry. It’s also a commercial and tourist center. Thus, practically every type of cuisine is available. Since Hindus are traditionally vegetarian, there are many purely vegetarian restaurants, many of which include vegan options. Since cows are considered sacred by Hindus, beef is not eaten. But milk, yogurt, butter, and ghee (clarified butter) are widely used in Indian recipes. Thus, Indian Macdonald’s restaurants do not serve beef hamburgers. However, water buffalo meat is similar in taste and texture to beef and is not forbidden by Hinduism.

Muslims are not bound by Hindu dietary laws. But they avoid slaughtering cows, because to do so would evince a violent response by Hindus. Muslims forbid pork. Hindus avoid pork as well. Only in the former Indian province of Goa can one potentially find beef and pork served because Goa was a Portuguese colony for many years, and Catholic Indians are not bound by Hindu and Muslim dietary laws.

Loving the food!

Susan and I enjoy the rich variety of Indian dishes. “Curry” is a generic term similar to “stew.” In other words, there are an infinite variety of curries reflecting regional differences. North Indian cuisine often includes yogurt in its recipes, whereas South Indian cuisine favors coconut milk in place of yogurt in its recipes.

Besides going out to eat in the many restaurants, Susan and I have discovered how easy and inexpensive it is to have food delivered to our apartment. The portions are large and inexpensive (compared to American take-out food). They don’t ask how spicy we want the dishes to be. They are all spicy!

One of our favorites is to order Chinese food in Mumbai. Indian-Chinese food is tastier than Chinese food in the US and in China. My friend remarked: Indians’ taste buds are so saturated with spices that the Chinese had to do something!

For myself, the best thing about food in India is the wonderful tropical fruits: papayas, bananas, coconuts, mangos, etc. They are tree-ripened and fresh from the farmers. So they simply taste better than the imported fruits we can buy at home. The vegetables in the market are equally fresh, but since we aren’t cooking ourselves, we don’t buy the lovely vegetables.

Current Politics

Susan and I have joked that we’re on an “apology tour” based on our disapproval of Trump’s actions against India. Trump and Narendra Moti have similar huge egos. Both Trump and Moti have denounced and suppressed journalists who have dared to be critical of them in any way. Despite their initial positive encounters, the Trump-Moti relationship has degenerated. Trump tried to take credit for ending the recent military conflict between India and Pakistan, but Moti strongly denied Trump’s influence, preferring to take the full credit for himself for resolving the conflict.

Trump introduced a $100k fee on H1B visas (the visas awarded exclusively to immigrants with specialized skills). India provides the US with more specialized high-tech immigrants than any other country in the world. But a $100k qualification fee will many prevent many skilled immigrants from accepting employment being offered to them in the US. Most recently, Trump placed a 50% tariff on all imports from India to the US. Besides the tariffs being a tax paid by Americans who purchase Indian imports, the tariffs harm the Indian handicraft imports (carvings, statues, clothing, carpets, etc.), which are the products produced mostly by poor Indian traditional craftspeople. Trump’s justification was that India buys Russian oil. But Trump has levied tariffs on every country in the world except Russia!