Who is, I wonder, better prepared for the altered reality of an utterly foreign land:  our forebears whose ships took weeks to slowly crawl across the globe; or us, the jet-lagged jet-setters who left home that very same day?   After a few hours of flight east or west, our minds are left hopelessly behind, bobbing in the vapor trail marking the route taken by our bodies, securely buckled in their seats.  The first day or two after arrival at our destination are a slow and fumbling process of reeling our minds back in again.

These thoughts buzzed blearily in my head as I leaned from my balcony in the Taj Mahal Hotel in Bombay – or Mumbai, as it’s called these days.  Below me, swarming people, cars, buses, and motorcycle rickshaws seemed to cover every inch of pavement, sending up a cacophony that in my weakened state threatened to topple me over.  Above me, soared improbable numbers of sinister dark raptors, Black Kites, their ceaseless, ominous circling enlivened from time to time by flights of vivid green parakeets. To my right was the monumental British-era archway known as the Gateway to India, on the shores of the greasy-calm Arabian Sea.  And before me, and stretching on and on to the smog-smeared horizon, was an endless city.  There was no doubt about it:  I had arrived.

No one place can encompass India’s endless variety.  This is a country, after all, in which government business may be conducted in 22 different languages.  That being said, Mumbai provides an appropriately overpowering introduction.  The population of Mumbai is literally uncountable, but a commonly given estimate is 18 million.  Yes, that’s over four times the population of Oregon.  And Mumbai’s importance is not related merely to its size:  for modern India, Mumbai is like New York and Los Angeles rolled into one.   It is both the financial and the entertainment capital.  The city’s “Bollywood” film industry turns out 800-900 movies a year (more than twice as many as Hollywood), and irresistibly draws would-be stars from every corner of India.   This is a city of strivers and dreamers.  As we toured Mumbai, the energy on the streets penetrated even into our air-conditioned buses.  And at stops like the Central Market, we had our first immersion into that dizzying masala (literally, a mix of spices) of colors and scents that will forever fill my memories of India.