Measure out: one part Hollywood;
six parts traffic; a bunch of rich power-moguls; stir in half a dozen colonial
relics (use big ones); pour in six heaped cups of poverty; add a smattering of
swish bars and restaurants (don't skimp on quality here for best results); equal
parts of mayhem and order; as many ancient bazaars as you have lying around; a
handful of Hinduism; a dash of Islam; fold in your mixture with equals parts
India; throw it all in a blender on high (adding generous helpings of pollution
to taste) and presto: Mumbai!
(source: Lonely Planet India)
"The first thing I noticed about Bombay was the smell of the different air. I
could smell it before I saw or heard anything of India. I know now that it is
the sweet, sweating smell of hope, which is the opposite of hate; and its is the
sour, stifled smell of greed, which is the opposite of love. It is the smell of
gods, demons, empires, and civilizations in resurrection and decay. It is the
blue skin-smell of the sea, no matter where you are in the Island City, and the
blood metal smell of machines. It smells of the stir and sleep and waste of
sixty million animals, more than half of them humans and rats. It smells of
heartbreak, and the struggle to live, and of the crucial failures and loves that
produce our courage. It smells of ten thousand restaurants, five thousand
temples, shrines, churches, and mosques; and of a hundred bazaars devoted
exclusively to perfumes, spices, incense and freshly cut flowers (...) And
whenever I return to Bombay it is that smell, above all things, that welcomes me
and tells me I've come home"
Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram
