The Connaught Hotel in Bombay was a government run
establishment, and it had an institutional feel about it, not so much in the
lobby and reception area, but in the long, curving corridors that led
eventually to my rather tatty room. I was tired after a long journey, but
exhilarated by my arrival in this fascinating country and a little
disorientated. I had finished the bottle of water that I had bought for my
journey from Zurich, so I opened the minibar for refreshment. There was the
usual array of extortionately priced beer, wine, whisky, crisp packets and
chocolate bars, and two litre bottles of water. Picking one up I realised that
that what I thought in the dim light was condensation on the outside of the
bottle was actually cloudy water on the inside! So I checked the bottle top, and
sure enough it was not sealed. Furious, I called reception and insisted that
they replaced their refilled water bottles with new, properly sealed ones,
which they did somewhat begrudgingly.
It took a while to wind down after that but in the end the
safest place to be was under the bed covers because my room was already
occupied, by a family of mosquitos. Their intimidating, high pitched whine
seemed to penetrate my ears so I put the covers over my head and attempted to
sleep. Trouble is, the room was suffocatingly hot and the inadequate air
conditioning unit hummed with such resonance that the bed seemed to shake, so I
was certainly not destined to have a good night’s sleep.
I think adrenalin took over the following day, because when
my guide arrived the collect me I felt fresh and ready to go. Shanti Mansabdar
had travelled to the UK a few months previously and saw an opportunity to sell
our range of reconditioned woodworking machines into the Indian market. The
purpose of my trip to Bombay was to follow up his interest and for him to
introduce me to potential customers around the city. So we took a cab to an
‘industrial estate’ to meet a young, stylish man called Mr. Jain. The
‘industrial estate’ was more like a converted four story block of flats, and
each of its rooms were occupied by businesses involved in a variety of
activities from textiles to metalwork to furniture manufacture, which was Mr.
Jain’s business. The cab could only take us so far and we walked the final few
hundred yards through a crowded and vibrant market place, with telephone wires
hanging loosely across the narrow street, connected between stalls in all kinds
of ingenious, and largely unsafe ways!
It was clear from the meeting with Mr. Jain that selling our
machines to him would be quite a task. Shanti was extremely deferential and
clearly of little influence. Mr. Jain was polite, professional, but already
used machinery that had kept his business going for many years, albeit in Heath
Robinson fashion. Investing in better equipment is something that was not in
the forefront of his mind. So we had tea and Shanti walked me back through the
market to a railway platform. We boarded a train for just a few stops, and as
we stood in the crowded carriage my fellow passengers decided they should
practise their English on me and so a very enjoyable half hour passed, until we
reached the grandeur of Bombay’s main railway station. I had asked Shanti if we
could pick up some more bottled water as my supplies were disappearing fast in
the 35 degree heat, and he seemed very happy then to take me into the ‘best
supermarket in the city’, which was actually a mid-sized corner shop on three
levels with narrow aisles, congested with others who seemed equally overawed at
its splendour!
Our next appointment was with a company who made laminated
furniture, and who had expressed interest in reconditioned presses,
finger-jointers, and stitching machines. We arrived in that part of town an
hour early so it was nice to get away from the fast pace of the city’s life for
a while to have a real conversation over lunch under a big fan. Shanti was
taking seeds out of a bowl on the table, as we would eat Bombay mix and I
assumed it was something similar so went to try some. He stopped me and pointed
out that it would not be good for me, and as I looked more closely I noticed
that there were insects moving within the seeds.
It was clear after our second meeting that the price
expectation of Shanti’s customers was significantly below what I was prepared
to sell them for. Therefore I quickly came to regard the Bombay leg of my trip
as an educational opportunity, and for making connections for the future. As we
left that meeting for others in an industrial area a little farther out of
town, I noticed that the streets were stained with red blotches, just as the
staircase had been at Mr. Jain’s industrial estate so I asked why, and it was
because the locals chewed on a form of rice leaf that made their spittle red,
and which they habitually disgorged as they went about their daily
business.
As with part 1 of this Tale, I was struck at every corner by
the gulf between the haves and the have-nots, between the men and women who
owned the businesses, factories and shops, and the poor scraping a living from
waste, or by begging on behalf of the street mafia whose exploitative trade
will feature in part 3.
No comments:
Post a Comment