Daily Life


Can you imagine spending the whole morning going to and from the supermarket (actually the only full scale one in Mumbai) just to do trolley load of shopping? The absolute surrender this exercise takes is still just beyond my reach hence blogging in the car.

After all it was only just over two months ago that I could walk to Lidl, Aldi and my local Bio Markt, all within ten minutes max, do a load of shopping and walk home all before the kettle boiled.

Here there is some totally beyond me thing where every item is scanned then the price is checked by the operator on the screen, on the package and on the screen again...before being shipped off to the packer boy who is still half asleep. No recycled bags here these boys use heavy duty plastic, the kind that could be used as a rain coat through monsoon. Nothing like the Lidl girl shoving my groceries along and expecting me to have them Packed ready to pay so she can process the next person.

Daily life can also mean a walk outside my gate to the local Costa Coffee for a shot of what was the worst coffee I ever tasted just two months ago and now is completely palatable, back home via the green coconut seller for a 20 rupee fresh coconut milk, sliced open on the spot. How those boys do not have nine fingers is beyond me!

I did not think I could even step outside my gate and now just a week after living in the apartment here on the tenth floor of Rose Queen I wander past stray dogs, metal wallas, oxen carts and fruit and vege sellers, past the shoe repair guy, the key grinder (who does a terrible job of recreating a key by hand but is s nice enough fellow) and into one of several small stores selling daily supplies - all of which I never needed before living here!

I was just thinking this morning about how we now have a catholic maid to clean for us five and a half days a week (luxury you say - Mumbai has a way of making everything dirty in a day!), a Hindi boy to walk Lizzie three times a day and a Moslem Driver to get us in and around this crazy traffic. All people, all with families and bigger lives than I could ever imagine and now all a part of our life. Forget privacy!

More on daily life another time. It is almost too much to tell in one day!

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