Mumbai, the city you are
Disclaimer: This is my Mumbai. It is necessarily incomplete, shaped by the fact that I am a visitor and by the privileges I carry with me. There are parts of this city I will never understand from the inside. I can´t speak for people who have a reality that differs heavily from mine. And while I´m deeply in love with this city, my experience of Mumbai is obviously not universal. But I can still write about what being here feels to me.
Honestly, I don´t even know where to start. It´s a city that stole my heart when I arrived in the pouring rain during monsoon season, heavily sleep deprived from a long flight. My cab driver dropped me off in the middle of a road trying to scam me, and I stood in the pouring rain crying. Eventually, I managed to find my accommodation, immediately got the flu and spent almost a week in bed.
That was in 2023. Somehow, from there, my relationship with Mumbai mostly went uphill. It´s a city that drives me nuts some moments and makes me fall in love with life and its people again two seconds later – my best and my lowest moments lie very close together here.
I love when people come up to me and ask me if I enjoy being in their country, which leads to such wholesome conversations about India and Mumbai especially, because yes, I really fucking enjoy being here.
It´s the small interactions with the streetfood vendors, women coming up to me with their babies for them to say hello, it´s driving full speed on the back of a motorcycle with the wind in my hair, it´s the freedom I feel, the warmth of the people, the colors, the fact there is a celebration for almost everything. Most of the time, I have no idea what´s going on, in the best way possible.
To me, it´s one of the greatest cities in the world, I love the chaos, the liveliness, the people, the vibrancy, food, trains, this list could go on for a very long time.
When I first started writing this, I kept feeling like I needed to prove that I was being thoughtful and reflective. I started describing Mumbai almost exclusively through its social problems, as if I had to earn the right to talk about the things I love about it. Eventually, I realized I don't. It took me a while to come to that conclusion, and in the end, I rewrote most of the text.
Today is my second last day here, I´m sitting by the window in my friend Dagi´s apartment, trying to capture Mumbai in words, which honestly, is very difficult. It´s just the overall feeling of being here that makes Mumbai very special to me.
If the perspective of the West wasn´t so negative towards India in general, I think Mumbai could easily be as popular as New York City – obviously, nothing could ever replace NYC but more in a sense of a tourist destination. If I crave a big city getaway, I will choose Mumbai over NYC in a heartbeat.
There are many great things to do here, and I felt like sharing some of my favorite everyday activities.
Grabbing a snack and taking a random train
I can´t describe the feeling of being on a train in Mumbai – doors and windows open, the wind in my hair. Vendors coming in trying to sell their goods, kids are playing, there is always something going on.
I know I'm experiencing the Mumbai public transport system very differently from the millions of people who depend on it every day. For me, taking a random train has become one of my favorite ways to get lost in the city.
So I grab something to eat from a stall – they are at every train station selling packaged snacks, sometimes even fresh things like Samosas and fruit juice. There are so many different ones, trying all of them would be nearly impossible.
Then I hop on a random train (I can´t really read the signs anyways), listen to music on my mp3 player or just the sounds of the railway, look out of the window while Mumbai passes me by.
I get off whenever I feel like, and walk around exploring the area I´m in. This is by far one of my favorite ways to discover any city, and Mumbai especially, with the trains being a whole experience in itself.
Another thing that makes the whole experience so enjoyable for me is the fact that every train has female-only compartments. There is something incredibly comforting about being surrounded by women of completely different ages and backgrounds, all sharing the same space for a few stops. I don't know exactly how to describe it, but I always feel strangely connected to the women around me in these compartments. Of course, it's a sad reality that these compartments have to exist in the first place, but since they do, I might as well use them.
Thursdays Vinyl listening night
Every Thursday, the Adagio music school hosts a Vinyl listening session – they pick an album, everyone gathers around the record player, and we just listen. Is there a more perfect activity? I honestly don´t think so.
I wish there would be something like that back home in Berlin, I keep thinking about hosting something similar myself one day, to gather people who care about music and foster analog listening culture.
Led Zeppelin IV was one of the records that I didn´t pay attention to before, I watched a documentary about Led Zeppelin and their way to fame in the cinema last year, so I have some basic knowledge about the band. But still, I never really got into the music, until a few weeks ago, when I listened to Led Zeppelin IV during the Vinyl listening session.
I don´t have videos of the listening sessions because the whole point is to be in the moment just listening, so I felt like pulling out my digicam to record would fuck up the vibe.
Eat Eat Eat
Obviously. I mean, what else would I do all day?
The food in India has a quite negative perception in the West - something that upsets me. Indian food being perceived as unclean and associated with food poisoning, or just labeled down to Butter Chicken and Naan, which all just comes down to structural racism.
This opens up a whole new topic I could talk about for hours, how the western perspective of food in India just reflects negatives stereotypes reproduced by the media.
I've also noticed how much the internet contributes to this image. Videos are going viral where people ragebait by deliberately finding the most questionable street food places and therefore painting a picture of (street) food in India that´s simply not true.
Yes, of course, there are street food stands with different hygienic standards than my stomach could handle, yes of course one can get food poisoning here (like in every other place in the world), but that´s not the point. The point is people profit from this by showing the most extreme example to gather attention online, at the cost of the locals.
I've noticed that where I choose to eat changes how I experience a city. So I pick the simple street Dhabas, which has led me to some of the best food I've ever had. Nothing like sitting on the floor on the side of the road eating Masala Dosa, or sharing a standing table with other people during their lunch break because the place is just so busy - I like the feeling of being somewhere that is part of people's everyday lives.
On another note, everyone that I personally know of who got food poisoning in India got it by eating non-Indian food such as ice cream or sticking to “safe” (in a comforting way because it´s something known from home) places like McDonalds. Just saying.
Also for a vegetarian India is the most wonderful place, so many restaurants that sell only vegetarian food - I could never shut up about the food in India because it makes me so fucking happy.
Motorbiking around or almost free therapy
I have many activities I LOVE in Mumbai. But grabbing a Rapido (something like Uber Bike) and driving through the city, the wind in my hair, good music blasting though my headphones is just a top activity.
Bonus points if it´s night and the skyline of Mumbai and city lights look incredibly gorgeous. I have perfected my Mumbai on motorbike playlist over time, which is led by the record Blood by Then comes silence.
Something about being on a bike, especially at night, immediately clears my mind. Somehow, I think about things differently than I would when I'm sitting at home.
Some nights when I didn´t have plans, I just typed in a random Momo street food stall in a part of Mumbai that´s at least 30 minutes away (the further the better), enjoyed the drive, had some Momos and went back home.
It really is one of the activities I´ll miss most when I go back to Berlin, and I´ll enjoy my last few drives to the fullest.
Also, for this video I borrowed my friend Dagi´s camera, and to this day, it´s one of my favorite videos I ever edited, because I feel like it captures the feeling of being on a motorbike in Mumbai at night perfectly.
Grabbing a Vada Pav and watching the sunset
To be honest, the sunsets in Mumbai (at least during this time of year) aren´t the most beautiful due to air pollution, but I still enjoy sitting by the beach during sunset time and eating a Vada Pav, which is a street food very famous for Mumbai and the Maharashtra state. It´s a fried potato mixture served in a bun topped with delicious chutneys. It might sound not too spectacular but it´s so fucking good – it´s 7:17 pm as I´m writing this, and I´m contemplating whether I should take a break from writing to get up and eat Vada Pav.
Update: ✶ I didn´t because I´m going to a birthday party in a bit, my friend just texted me to meet at 8:30 which is way earlier than I expected, but I will have Vada Pav tomorrow for sure and I´m already excited.
Going to the cinema
Top tier activity everywhere I travel to. I´ve watched Bollywood movies in Hindi where I had no idea what´s going on, I also watched some English movies that I would´ve watched in cinema back home anyways.
Maratha Mandir for example is a famous cinema in Central Mumbai as they show the same Bollywood classic, Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, everyday at 11:30 am since 1995. I went there on my first India trip in 2023, and even though I haven’t been there recently, I´d still recommend it.
There are also very modern cinemas, you can order food directly to your seat, which was a first for me. I keep talking about this experience to everyone because I had no idea such things existed and was very excited to try this.
Drives on Sea Link
No better way to romanticize your life, pretending to be the main character in some 2000s Rom Com.
These are just a few activities I enjoy in Mumbai, I feel like I could talk about my favorite things to do for a long time, maybe another day I will.
Of course, Mumbai also drives me absolutely insane sometimes. A few things I keep struggling with:
Stares. Yes, I get stared at a lot. Like, a lot. Some days, it bothers me, most days, I don’t care. I don´t consider staring as something negative or rude, but sometimes, I just wanna eat my Chana Masala in peace without being looked at, but that´s that.
Air pollution is quite bad, especially around this time of year, and I´ve started wearing masks when I´m out in traffic on a motorbike to protect my health.
Sometimes, I´m not taken seriously, it´s probably the mix of being a tourist and a woman on top. However, when talking to Indian women in Mumbai, most of them are mirroring my experience, even though it´s considered one of the best cities in India for women.
I've also encountered things around gender that are very different from what I'm used to. Like, what do you mean I need my husband's or father's approval when I want to get a SIM card? Maybe that's a silly example, because it´s obviously a lot deeper than that, but it genuinely caught me off guard.
Noises. This still gets me some days, even though most of the time, I´ve gotten used to it. I always bring my earplugs when coming to India, I didn´t bring them on my first trip and desperately tried to buy some – impossible. But when I already feel overstimulated, earplugs really help me to navigate my way around.
Fuck the food is spicy, and I´m just a German potato, after all. I´m challenging myself to build up my spice tolerance, but my Indian friends still laugh at me. I think I´m getting a little better though. And I still love spicy food even though my body has a hard time handling it.
I think that´s about it.
To me, Mumbai is just one of the best places in the world, with all its up-and downsides. As I´m rewriting this, it´s already been four months since being back in Germany, and I caught myself hopping on Skyscanner just to check flight prices (I have three weeks off in November, so this is very tempting…)
Anyways, I really appreciate you reading all of this, and for letting me show you one of my favorite cities of all time.