Welcome to Incredible India!" proclaimed a tattered banner at Mumbai airport. Patricia and I squeeze into a dilapidated taxi.

 

Three stray dogs chase our taxi. The rattling tin- pot taxi, grunts and groans raucously on compressed natural gas. A massive CNG cylinder monopolizes the boot of the car. So, two suitcases are rammed against us. " Never walk a street after dark. It is not only the goons you have to worry about. It is also stray dogs. They rule the streets at night," cautions our driver. Welcome.

 

As we leave the airport, we undergo continuous nerve- wracking jolts, due to the ragged roads. At traffic signals children encircle the taxi, seeking alms. This is Patricias first visit to India. She is petrified and rolls up the glass. The urchins knock wildly on the glass, gesticulating for money.

 

We see massive mounds of uncollected, scattered garbage, at street corners. The stench is obnoxious. " Where are the dust- bins?" asks Patricia. Everywhere there are crowds of people. Waiting to cross a road, buy milk, and board a bus.

 

With such massive throngs, there can be no disciplined queues.

The taxi crawls through Dharavi, Asias biggest slum, with a population of 2 Mn. It is grey and dilapidated. Broken roads, open potholes, traffic snarls delay our odyssey. Ramshackle houses are falling apart. Shops, homes overflow onto the streets. There are over 500 residents to a toilet in this slum. Many people relieve themselves on the streets.

 

We see entire footpaths, built for pedestrians, swallowed by shanties. Houses made of tin, plywood, aluminum on the footpaths, have built mezzanine floors. They have electricity, meters and TV dishes.

So, homeless people bathe, live, sleep in shanties, on footpaths earmarked for pedestrians. Then, pedestrians walk on roads meant for cars. On a two- lane road, one lane is occupied by pedestrians and hawkers selling potatoes, oranges and underwears. Our taxi crawls at a snails pace on a narrow road. " Bigger cars, smaller roads!" observes our driver.

 

A few days later, Patricia and I go grocery shopping. We buy mangoes and cauliflower, from some shops on the street. They are covered with dust and soot. Patricia is habituated to shopping in air- conditioned hypermarkets, where 11 varieties of apples, 8 varieties of oranges and 7 varieties of tomatoes sell after cleaning, grading and packing. " How do I get a fresh loaf of bread?" she laments.

 

" Do not bring anything with you! You get everything here," our friends had written to us. But, we could not buy a freezer, in any electronic shop. Gradually it dawned on us, that most electronic items, cost upto 100 per cent higher here, than abroad.

 

We rent an apartment in new tall tower. Patricia loved the marble floors. " I feel like a Princess", she proclaimed. " But the entrance to this 25 storied tower is so narrow that no fire brigade can pass through. The main road so is traffic clogged that an ambulance will need an hour to get through!" she opined. She was right. She added " There is no helipad! All towers must have helipads as a safety precaution!" That night, we had a power cut for 4 hours. The next day we had a water- cut for 6 hours. My Princess was despondent.

Then, we were invited for our first party. Patricia adores her simple jeans. But, at the party she is flummoxed by brands - Guccis, Saks 5th Avenues, Armanis and diamonds by the dozen. Patricia struggles to reconcile the hungry beggars, toilet- less shanties, with the champagne of the parties and the flotilla of Mercedes.

There is ceaseless burble about cancerous corruption and spiraling interest rates. " You must be feeling lost and obsolete in the new emerging India!" said a Mr. Important, slapping me on my shoulder. I had forgotten the art of diplomacy in the years that I had lived abroad to earn my daily bread.

 

So I told him what I had seen: a slumdwelling woman squats on a broken footpath. Her half- naked emaciated son of four years scrounges for morsels of food on the pavement. The 30- year- old worn- out mother watches listlessly. She has no money to feed him. She is also emotionally empty.

Again, a garbage collector sleeps, using rubbish wrapped in a dirty polythene bag as a pillow. Cars speed by. He is indifferent to his surroundings. He commenced his day at 4am. At noon, he is weary and sleeps on a bundle of waste.

 

Then, a middle- aged man lies unconscious on the ground, in front of a bus stop. Any passing vehicle could crush him. A thousand people are milling around, but nobody has the time to call the police or an ambulance.

I concluded my angst; " Actually I notice degeneration in everything...." Mr. Important counseled, " Oh, you fuss. Just get hard!" He shrugged and walked out on me.

 

Patricia had been cornered by Mrs. Important, " So are you impressed with our new India, growing at 8 per cent ever year?" Patricia replied very demurely, " Yes, amazed. But I was happier in a country which grew at 1 per cent, but looked after its poor and always had water in the taps." Nobody spoke to Patricia after that.

Patricia and me are going to be very lonely here. We will not receive any more dinner invitations. Patricia is threatening to return to Rio de Janeiro. I have warned her if she does that; I will go an indefinite fast in protest.

 

The author is the Managing Director of a Consulting Group. He worked for Unilever in Latin America, Africa and Asia.