Welcome to Mumbai

I must admit, I embarked on this particular adventure with the assumption that NOTHING could be more stressful than my first few days in Cairo last summer. Turns out I was wrong; at any rate, Mumbai is certainly running a close second.

Neema and I regretfully left Goa (after a day of shopping) and flew back into Mumbai, an entirely acceptable, relaxing, non-threatening experience (although the second time in the last week I've been allowed to board an aircraft without showing ANY identification to ANYONE). Our luggage all arrived fine, and Currun was outside waiting as promised. He'd been confused about our arrival time, so apparently got to the airport a couple of hours early, but was in good spirits all the same. We head outside, get in the queue, and catch a cab to Chembur (a district of Mumbai), where we will be spending the next three weeks.

Traffic was INSANE, but I was fondly reminded of Cairo, so wasn't shaken. In fact, Mumbai looks a LOT like Cairo in many ways – out of control traffic, disgusting pollution, 20-year-old taxis, new modern shops sandwiched between old, worn out storefronts ... According to those in my group who have visited India before, Mumbai is actually incredibly clean and modern as compared to New Delhi, and it certainly doesn't seem any worse than Cairo.

So, even though I hadn't wanted to leave Goa, I was in fairly good spirits. Currun, who'd spent the last week with family, was very glad to see us, and we were having a pretty good time, even though the cab was spending WAY more time standing still than actually moving. In fact, the driver shut off the car on a regular basis, to save on petrol (yay for British vocab words!), and we just sat parked in the middle of the road.

Except one of the dozens of times the driver did this, something weird happened – the silver SUV in front of us pulled forward slightly, and then the driver got out of his car and came back towards us. He leaned in the driver's window and started saying something, and then suddenly slapped our poor driver upside the head! He did it again, then tried to open the driver's door – although the driver tried to keep it shut, he was unsuccessful and the SUV driver managed to pull him out into the road, hit him a few more times, and kick him into our car, before storming back up to his own SUV.

Our driver, shirt torn, got back into the car, took a few deep breaths, pulled forward a bit (traffic had moved), and then started to get back out. We all pleaded with him to stay in the car, and he did finally climb back in without approach the SUV driver, although he was pretty upset. The rest of the car ride was VERY silent, and we gave him a pretty big tip (actually, we just didn't bargain when he gave us a hugely inflated price, but it comes to the same thing) because he'd had a rough night... What was most perplexing about the whole incident, though, is that it seemed entirely without cause – apparently, the SUV driver was claiming that we'd hit his car, but I'm 98% certain our car was OFF at the time, AND there was nothing wrong with his car (I looked as he drove off).

Neema, Currun and myself were all pretty shaken, although they both say they haven't seen or heard of anything like this happening in India – apparently, it was quite the aberration.
After a dinner – during which we alternated between silence and nervous giddiness – we piled back into a cab to head back to the airport, to pick up the rest of our team. Aziza was scheduled to arrive on a direct flight from Atlanta around 10:20, and Mike and Sharan were coming via Amsterdam about an hour later. The plan was that the three of them would meet inside, and then come outside (“visitors” aren't allowed into the airport without paying for a visitor's ticket).
We arrived right on time for Mike and Sharan's flight, and after about 20 minutes of wait time, they made it out. Without Aziza. Which doesn't sound like that much of a problem, unless you had read the email Aziza had sent out a few days ago. Apparently, she's been added to some immigration list (she's Muslim), and the last two times she's flown back into the US, she's been detained by Homeland Security for hours on end. Her email pleaded with us to call her parents and her boyfriend if something happened. Thus, when she wasn't anywhere in the departure terminal (Sharan and Mike had watched for her, and then Mike actually convinced security to let him back in and looked around a second time), we had every reason to suspect the worst.

There followed an intense and slightly frantic search. Mike verified that she was on the passenger list as having boarded the plane in the US, and that the plane had landed about an hour and a half previous to these inquiries. A few of us headed up to the airport manager's office, where Sharan took full advantage of our Harvard backing, explaining that she had just come from America, where she works at Harvard University, and one of her Harvard students was missing. The manager was completely ineffectual, and didn't even manage to acquire the information Mike already got (that Aziza had boarded the plane), but he did provide the extension number and phone access so that Sharan could call immigration directly. They claimed that 1) there was no one currently detained, and 2) that flight had never landed.

Oh, dear.

Eventually, just as we had exhausted our (admittedly short) list of options, Currun came running into the office to tell us that he'd found her! In fact, her plane had landed early and she'd been waiting in the arrivals area, just as she'd been instructed. The fact that none of us had seen her, and she hadn't seen us, was astonishing – not only had Sharan specifically checked those seats, but apparently Aziza had walked through the exit a couple of times to access phones, dragging her luggage with her and making what she claims was quite a scene. However it happened, though, we were grateful that nothing more sinister had happened to prevent her from meeting us.

All in all, a VERY stressful first night in a new city. Despite everything, though, it's really nice to have the whole team here and feel like things might start happening soon – plus, now that Sharan has arrived, the rest of us can abdicate all responsibility (if we hadn't done so already ...).