Longtime townie Jeff Brunell finally returned to school just before turning thirty. He’s in southern India, completing his graduate field work and taking stock. These are his findings. –

I did the math, roughly. And at the rate I’ve been posting these entries – about six monthly -I won’t reach the present day, 09/26/13, until after New Years, 2015.

Maybe I’ll compile all of that for my grandchildren, or for myself in my old age. But I can’t and probably shouldn’t go into that kind of detail in public, once weekly, until the outer reaches of imaginable time.

Instead: I’m going to select a few days to feature in-depth while letting the details of my gastric distress and exercise routines fall aside of recorded history. Those will start next week. For now, here are some Mumbai photos that didn’t fit in the first few entries.

-JKB

 

Near the southernmost tip of Mumbai. Their are no vacancies, at least not the way I think of them in America – stretching for miles, empty neighborhoods. Every storefront is filled and often, multiple businesses share a single space.

 

Bus service in Mumbai – and everywhere else I’ve been in India, however rural – is timely and reliable, though the coaches themselves are often crowded in the extreme.

 

It was overcast for the first two months that we were here. I didn’t catch even a glimpse of stars or the moon until mid-July, and the first start-to-finish sunny day came in August.

 

I wish that I could do justice to the frenetic Mumbai traffic, but every attempt is a blur. This shows  a basic premise – everybody go, nobody yield, all the time – at an instant when it was in slow enough motion that  I could catch it.

 

Streetside tailors with pre-1950s sewing machines are everywhere. They work on-demand and super fast.

 

Old buildings and new buildings. A lot of the skyscrapers in India have a really breezy feeling, cement and pastels, that sometimes makes me forget the gravity of a thirty story building.

 

How I spent my student loan money. Also note the ‘STICK NO BILLS’ policy. Posters for films and political campaigns are on every block, but so are these warnings to everyone else.

 

Some contrasting building styles, with crows.

 

I just love this blurry cat.

 

There are endless ingenious variations to the ancient and leaden bikes here. The carrying capacity of this one is at the lower end of the scale; some two-wheelers tote loads 6 feet cubed over back tires.

 

Tremendously detailed cement work and the inescapable mold.

 

Street cow no. 1.

 

Wash lines, ads, balcony gardens.

 

Rectangle Monument, naval complex.

 

Despite the monsoon – which makes summer in Baltimore feel arid by contrast – no one appears to be sweating. Men in India, not just enlisted personnel, all appear as if they own and utilize irons.

 

Mumbai has the greatest crows I’ve ever seen.

 

The old stop sign; detailed engraving in the wood; sliding glass windows; cement building and modern lines; marble everything inside.

 

Sleepy goats.

 

“HORN OK PLEASE” – honk to pass.

 

Construction in Worli.

 

Tarp-covered slums with highrises behind.

 

A cab and two buddies.

 

The edge of a slum just as it started pouring.

 

Some things are always out of reach.

 

See the feet?

 

Typical Indian storefront – like concrete cubicles or shipping containers.

 

Urgent business call.

 

There are miles of buildings this ornate.

 

…and endless streams of heartbreaking street dogs.

 

Tin roof in a crowded market.

 

Dogs on a trashed sea wall.

 

Again.

 

These kids were swimming in that water.

 

“What an unbelievable load of shit.”

 

Cowboy hat.

 

Meanwhile, two blocks away-