August 11, 2024 • 53 mins
In this episode, Ajay Row takes us on an enlightening tour of Mumbai, formerly known as Bombay. With his extensive experience navigating the city's notorious traffic and bustling streets, Ajay offers a unique perspective on the everyday chaos and charm of Mumbai. His stories, drawn from living in the US, UK, France, Singapore, and various Indian cities, add a rich, global context to our understanding of this vibrant metropolis.
We dive into Bombay's unique geography, including its sailing culture and impressive tidal phenomena. From the monsoon's dramatic impact to the stunning high-rise views, Ajay provides a captivating look at Bombay’s past and present, painting a vivid picture of its ongoing transformation.
Our journey doesn't end there. We traverse the diverse regions of India, offering travel tips and cultural insights for those eager to explore beyond the beaten path. We also touch on India’s rich religious diversity and the mouth-watering delights of South Indian cuisine, featuring must-try dishes in South Bombay. This episode is packed with invaluable insights for travelers and culture enthusiasts ready to discover India’s endless possibilities.
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by G. Pandrang Row Praemi M. Row
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Hi, welcome to our podcast when Next Travel with
Kristen and Carol.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
I am Kristen and I am Carol, and we're two long-term
friends with a passion fortravel and adventure.
Each episode, we interviewpeople around the globe to help
us decide where to go next.
So today we have AJ Rowecalling in from India.
He is an old friend of mine andhas spent a lot of time in the
(00:40):
US.
And where are you now, aj?
Speaker 3 (00:43):
I'm in Bombay.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
So Bombay, is it Mumbai now, or?
Speaker 3 (00:49):
No Mumbai, yeah, no Mumbai.
Sorry, I should have beenpolitically correct.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Yeah, so Bombay is the old name I remember that's
how I first heard of Mumbai,back when I first heard about it
.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
I just knew this is new to me because I, when I I
was goog, I always look up wherewe're talking and I put in
Bombay and it's Mumbai, and thenI kept trying to correct it.
I know why it wasn't working.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
We have a brochure for confusing the rest of the
world by renaming our cities.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
There you go.
How long ago?
What was the reason and howlong ago did that happen?
Speaker 3 (01:24):
20 years ago and I think it's.
Every time the politician feelsthe need for a few new votes,
he renames the city or sherenames the city.
Yeah, let's not be sexist aboutit.
Both stripes of politicians dothat kind of thing.
It's confusing for everybodyelse and very confusing for
people who live in the city.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
And since a lot of the cities were named, bombay is
not named by the British, itwas named by the Portuguese.
It means beautiful bay, but youknow the Bombay and the British
called it Bombay and that'swhat it was, until you know.
We decided no, no, no, no,that's not what it was, it was
something else before the cityexisted.
(02:05):
And we decided no, no, no, no,that's not what it was, it was
something else before the cityexisted.
And we decided to rename itMumbai, which caters to a class
of people, whose tiny, minusculelittle bunch of bishop folks
who lived on the island, theseven islands that made up
Bombay, before they were joinedtogether and they had a deity
(02:27):
called Momba Devi, and so theysaid she is the original.
You know the reason for thename it's the name for Bombay
it's all very confusing, okay,okay, very good, all right and
I'm sure there's somebody elsethere before that and you know,
I guess we'll go back far enoughin time.
We'll find those people andrename it yet again okay, and
(02:48):
how many people live in mumbai?
Not sure, but I think about 18million or 20 million or
something like that enormouscity.
Let me put it in perspective.
Carol yep, you start drivingfrom the I'm way at the southern
tip of Bombay, right down here.
You start driving, you drivefor five hours and you're still
(03:09):
in the city.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Oh my gosh, it's like LA times five yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
Wow, we got.
Yeah, like LA times fivewithout the freeways.
Oh without the freeways andslightly more traffic.
So with that as well, wemustn't forget that.
Okay, and you're still like?
Citing the cows and the mopedsand the rickshaws, or are those
just on the smaller streets Ithink the cows, and yeah, there
(03:37):
are some streets which wouldhave them, but by and large now
you're just fighting very baddriving.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
In India.
You know we're not greatbelievers and curtsy, and we're
all brought up in a scarcityeconomy, so we believe that.
You know we've got to grabevery last square inch of space
on the road.
Okay, and uh, scared that youget lonely if I don't come and
snuggle my car right up next toyou, right, I mean if you're
that much away.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Yeah, yeah, my recall is also like passing.
You're on a two-lane road, carsgo in one in each direction and
they pass.
They go in the other lane andthen they just cut over right
before they're late to go headon.
Are accidents pretty common?
Speaker 3 (04:24):
Yeah, but I think most accidents areone country in
the world.
I don't know this for a fact,but I guess.
But because we don't drive veryfast, because it's part of many
of us and the growth of logs,we don't really get up much
speed.
I think we probably have a verysmall percentage of fatalities
in the accidents.
I think we're okay.
(04:45):
We bump against each other.
I don't think there's a car inBombay which hasn't got bump
bugs all over it.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
Oh, so it's more just like bumper cars all the time
Not dangerous, not physicallydangerous.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
Boom, boom boom.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
They need to have bumpers around the cars so they
don't get bumped, or some sortof different bumper system
around the whole car so theydon't get bumped, or some sort
of different, uh, bumper systemaround around the whole car so
they don't get all.
Or you just kind?
Speaker 3 (05:08):
of think about that.
Yeah, maybe rubber all aroundor something like that.
Yeah, that's a bad idea okayand so money in that yeah, right
, okay.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
And then how much time have you spent in in the us
?
Speaker 3 (05:21):
I feel like quite a bit so about four or five years
all told, and I lived in the usas opposed to bit Four or five
years all told.
I lived in the US as opposed tomerely visiting About five
years.
I think you know Something likethat Is that back when we
worked together.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Yeah, you were living there.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
Yeah, that's where we used to work together.
Then, for a couple of yearsafter that, you got married and
disappeared to Denver.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
No, boulder, boulder right, that's where you were to
Denver, no Boulder.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
That's where you were , and then I moved to Manhattan.
At that time, I've lived inLondon for a couple of years.
I lived in Paris for five years, I stayed very briefly in
Singapore and I spent a lot oftime in cities all over India.
So I lived in San Francisco,new York, london, paris, bombay,
(06:06):
delhi, calcutta, madras, whichis now Chennai, bangalore, which
is now Bengaluru.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
And a little bit in Singapore.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Okay.
And so what's your favoriteplace to live in the world?
You've been so global Bombay,bombay, okay, so that you know
an American would go oh,favorite place.
You don't hear that very much.
Your favorite place to live inIndia.
Of course you have family thereand friends, but like outside
of that, those kind of thoseconnections, what do you love
(06:37):
about Bombay?
Speaker 3 (06:40):
There's much to love about Bombay.
It's sort of like New York, insome ways London.
You know these great cities.
They're very different from thecountries they're in, aren't
they?
They have their history, theyhave their culture.
They've got so many thingsgoing on.
Nobody ever sleeps in thesecities, right, Right, you know,
(07:00):
they're 24-7.
And Bombay is one of thosecities which is on the edge all
the time, right, I mean, it'sreally.
You know, they call it maximumcity.
And unless you've lived here,unless you, I mean, you've
visited, of course, Carol, andyou know what it's like, right,
and you know, there's noise allthe time.
There's something going on allthe time.
(07:21):
It's unrelenting.
Is Bollywood headquarteredthere?
Yeah, yeah, Bollywood, which isnow no longer the biggest cinema
industry in India is out ofBombay, so you're forever seeing
actors and actresses and allkinds of people.
I mean, bombay is pretty largeas you get it, both the scale of
(07:45):
it and the number of people.
I mean Bombay is, you know,it's pretty large as you get it
and the both the scale of it andthe number of people in it, but
also it's very culturally listand it's got quite a quite a
history.
So in addition to the richculture, right, it's got quite a
history in many, many strands,if you would.
You know, in business, inindustry, there are all kinds of
things about bombay.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
It's a fascinating city okay, and how old is it?
Like I mean because america, Iwould say new york is 230 years
old.
Give or take.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
It's not doing the math, but but uh, I'll put
things in perspective by indianstandards, right, because most
of our cities are thousands ofyears old, right?
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Oh, okay, so this one is relatively recent.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
It's about 400 years old, okay.
But let me put things inperspective, carol.
We've got a building here inBombay and the building has had
people sitting in the offices inthat building since before
America existed, since beforeAustralia was discovered, as it
were, right, so it's not veryold by Indian standards, but
it's pretty darn old by anybodyelse's right.
(08:51):
So the building's called GreatWestern and, uh, captain Cook,
you know, the uh, yeah, captainJames Cook, the guy who
circumnavigated Australia, thefirst, uh, brit to do so,
actually had an office there,and that office subsequently,
about 200, 300 years later,became a friend's office, and so
I've actually sat at the desk,oh wow, which is where the desk
(09:14):
that Captain Cook would havebeen, and overlooking the ocean.
So it's, yeah, it's got to go.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Oh, I just think of Johnny Depp.
I don't know if he's the one.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
Sorry, you just think of Johnny Depp.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
I don't know if he's Sorry, you just think of Johnny
Depp Depp, he's a famous actor,johnny.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
Depp, yeah, yeah, yeah, the Pirates of the
Caribbean, yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
Yeah, all playing on Memorial Day.
I guess there's five of them orsomething.
My daughter was watching someof them and they just played all
day long.
So it's kind of like New.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
York that it's kind of like new york, that it's
known for probably great food.
And how about?
Like what is it?
A melting pot.
Like new york is so amazingbecause it's such a melting pot.
You know different cultures.
Are there a lot of culturesthat end up settling in india?
Speaker 3 (09:54):
not as much so as new york, but it's.
It's got its own fair share,yeah and there must be.
I don't know.
I've got friends from almostevery part of the world here
it's.
It's not, you know, like newyork.
You've got an ethiopianrestaurant, you've got a tibetan
food restaurant, so you don'thave that kind of variety over
here, but you do have a lot ofindian variety oh, okay, so you
(10:18):
know communities and gardens, sothe different parts of bombay
which have different cultures.
so there's a community calledthe millions and there are
different parts of Bombay whichhave different cultures.
So there's a community calledthe Tamilians and there's a part
of Bombay which is veryTamilian in nature and the
lingua franca there would beTamil, which is the you know.
There's another part of Bombaywhich is Gujarati Jain in nature
, there's another part, etcetera, it goes on, and then
(10:39):
you've got these enormous swathsof Bombay which are just
completely mixed up.
So you know, neighbors would bedifferent religions, different
cultures, different tongues,different eating habits,
different.
You know everything.
And we all managed to get on.
Of course we get along verywell indeed because we hardly
(10:59):
know our neighbors.
It's a grand Bombay thing, likea grand New York thing, to not
know the person next door to you, but it's a fine old tradition.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
Okay that you do get to know each other, that you do
know each other or that youdon't.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
No, no, you don't you don't.
Okay, nobody's got the time toget to know anyone.
The reason why Bombay is sosafe.
It's a very safe city.
It is so safe.
Right, it's a very safe city,it is.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Okay, that's going to be one of my questions, I think
one of the reasons why it's sosafe.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
Well, you know my wife, you remember Nita Darrell.
Yeah, she used to be the headof a school and before that, one
of the courses she'd teach isSpanish, and so she had a
relationship with a school inSpain and all, all Spanish kids
would come into India and, uh,you know they did.
Kids would go to Spain andthey'd have this cultural
(11:48):
program a couple of times everyyear.
And when the Spanish kids camehere, uh, you know, they stroll
around the um slums, aroundBombay and it's completely safe,
right, they just walk in andand they find it surreal, they'd
say, look, you know we'd getkilled if we walked into an area
like this in our home countries, because you know the people
(12:09):
with guns and knives and youknow just be completely offended
.
And here are people welcomingthem in to their homes and you
know it's abject poverty.
It's not that these are well-offpeople, I mean it's really,
it's completely safe safe, I'vegot a theory which is
everybody's too busy makingmoney to rip you off or to
(12:29):
murder you.
Right, there's far more moneyto be made on the next deal than
you know hitting you on thehead okay, but thievery is not
an easy way to make money forsome people probably.
There's so much stuff going on.
There are many better ways tomake money, but that said, we do
have a pretty.
Have you heard of a guy calledShantaran?
Speaker 2 (12:51):
No.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
Shantaran.
He's an Shantaran.
He's an Australian criminal whoescaped to Bombay and he used
to live in a slum just down theroad from where I live, maybe a
couple of kilometers down theroad, and he live maybe a couple
of kilometers down the road andhe wrote a book about his time
(13:12):
here.
Absolutely fascinating.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Okay, it's worth reading if you haven't.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
Okay, and how do you spell Shantaran
S-H-A-N-T-A-R-A-N?
Speaker 2 (13:19):
Okay, I was close.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
R-O-N-R-A-N.
His real name is GregoryGregory.
Gregory Gregory, what Greg?
I know him as Greg so he's thefree surnames so he's a free man
in India.
He was a criminal in Australiamarried to a princess, so in
India or Australia, india, I'massuming right no, no, no,
(13:43):
neither he's married to aprincess.
Gregory.
Gregory David Roberts.
Yeah, that's right.
Three last names.
Gregory David Roberts, he'smarried to an Italian princess,
or an Austrian princess, orsomething like that.
Wow.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Well, that's a turnaround story, huh.
Speaker 3 (13:59):
Yeah, it really is.
It's a fascinating story, oh,so I want to read his book.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
I'm actually reading this book on Wallace Waddles.
It's about the science ofgetting rich.
It's very fascinating.
It's like there is a science toit and I'm like I don't know.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
I wonder if you've read that book.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
I haven't, I should.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
I'll tell you about it.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
It's pretty amazing.
That's a whole other topic.
You just do yeah.
So what do you do for fun?
Speaker 1 (14:28):
What do you do for fun?
What a beautiful day it lookslike in India.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
Sale, sale.
The nice thing about Bombay isthat it's like a little
peninsula.
It's like a little India stuckonto the big India right, and so
we've got water on three sidesof us.
It's like little India, youknow, stuck on to the big India
right, and so we got water onthree sides of us, and so we got
a lot of good sailing over here.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Oh, okay, so.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
I've got a couple of boats and you know, being on the
water is life.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
Nice and there's a very famous water area.
I hear the Maldives.
How far is that from you?
I hear people go to that allthe time.
It's like the Maldives, that's.
How far is that from you?
I hear people go to that allthe time that's further south of
us.
Okay.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
Right, and that's not India, that's another country.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Oh, it is a country.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
Indian islands called the Lakshmadip, which is just
above the Maldives, the Maldivesdown here.
You've got Bombay up here, soit's a straight line.
And if you sail south fromBombay, you go through the
Lakshmipuri, you go through theMaldives and the next stop is
Antarctica.
Oh okay, oh, wow, okay, okay,yeah, let me just draw a
(15:36):
straight line down from Bombay,and then you know what I'm
talking about.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
So Bombay is kind of like the Bay Area, but like
opposite, the Bay Area has likea peninsula going up and down.
This is like downward peninsula.
Yeah, wow.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
It's almost like the opposite here, where the Bay
Area's got all the water comingin.
This is just a little bitcoming out.
Bombay was actually sevenislands, right, Depending on how
you define an island.
Okay, and so Bombay was a partof the dowry of a princess of
Portugal who got married to theKing of England and she brought
(16:10):
the island along with variousother bits and pieces and that
was handed over.
Now the seven islands were kindof connected.
Well, four of them wereconnected in the low tide and
they became distinct islands inthe high tide.
So we have an area in Bombaycalled Paiduni, which literally
(16:35):
means wash feet.
Okay, so if you can imagine apart of New York called feet
down feet, wash down, right,that's Paiduni for you right.
Okay, right, that's by booniefor you, right, okay, and um, it
would be covered in water,right, uh, through the high tide
and the monsoons a lot of thetime, right, but uh,
occasionally it would you know,drain out and you could cross
from one island to the other.
(16:55):
Okay, and the problem was thetide came in very quickly and
the tide here is can be quiteimpressive.
It's usually about six to eightfeet, but it can be as much as
18.
Let's go out for a walk to thenext island.
Whoops, there's 80 feet ofwater between me and where I
want to go, right.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
How often does that happen?
At least once a year, well, no,no.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
It happens every monsoon.
The tides get really quiteferocious here.
Monsoons are not quitehurricanes, but just little
hurricanes down a notch andthat's what you got.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
What time of year does that happen?
Speaker 3 (17:33):
About now, another couple of weeks, and we'd be in
the middle of the monsoon, sowe'd be thundering and lightning
away, but anyway.
So what happened was thoseseven islands.
So what happened was thoseseven islands got joined bit by
bit, and so Bombay was literallybuilt on garbage and rotting
palm fronds you know coconutfronds and they just fill up the
(17:55):
water with.
You know this stuff.
And then you know it actuallycame to a point where they could
put earth and concrete on topof it, and so you've got this.
When I look at the the map.
It just looks like it's one bigpiece, um, and it's kind of
there's a lot of water and it'slike there's water up this way
and there's a canal going thatway where I live, the sea on
(18:16):
this side is about, uh, maybe 50, 100 meters away, and the sea
on that side, on the other side,is maybe a kilometer and a half
a kilometer away.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Kilometer kilometer and a half away maybe a mile
away, so you have some views,huh.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
That's it, sorry.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
You have some views.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
Yeah, yeah, we're very fortunate.
Yeah, I'll send you a picture.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Okay, and do you live in a high rise?
I assume everything is highrise there.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
Yeah, we're on the 18th floor, so by Bombay
standards that's not very highanymore, because now we've got
these 60-story and 80-storybuildings 80-story buildings.
Oh my goodness, I mean they'vegot these enormous buildings
that maybe I lie.
They were to be 18, but theyactually stopped at 72, because
there's some height restrictionor something like that.
(19:04):
There's all kinds of troubleabout that.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
They're enormous.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
Do you all get earthquakes there?
Yeah, Not so much.
In Bombay, All the new birdingsare earthquake-proofed.
You know the kind which?
Speaker 2 (19:14):
can take the earthquakes.
Oh yeah, they can handle theshaking.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
We don't get much.
We do get the occasional one,it's more.
We're not on the fault lineshere, we're exactly below them.
So we're not a california, okay, but there are parts of india
which are, you know, riddledwith fault lines, but we
fortunately not so much.
Though I do remember once I wasin singapore and I remember
watching the news and I stillthere's an earthquake and I
(19:37):
called home and I couldn't getthrough, oh, but fortunately the
wife and kids had slept throughit so it didn't disturb them
one little bit.
But it was quite scary for me,you know, several hours away and
worrying myself sick about thisearthquake.
But it's rare.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
Okay, and since you guys are on the water in kind of
like California, where you havelike the water's coming from
the west, is it cooler there?
What's the climate like?
Speaker 3 (20:03):
Where we are in the building we're at, remember, we
have through ventilation right,because we've got the sea on
three sides and so we get a lotof ventilation, so we're quite
blessed.
We don't necessarily need theair conditioning, but I mean,
people do use it.
The wife and I hardly use airconditioning, it's you know.
You're fine with a fan, oh okay, which.
You're fine with a fan, oh okay, which is kind of unusual in
(20:24):
Bombay.
But Bombay has got threeweather conditions right it's
hot, it's very hot and it'sraining.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
I knew oh, and then the rain.
Okay, got it, but still hot ormaybe humid at that time.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
Well, it cools down a bit during the rains, but yeah,
it's still hot.
It's by American standards.
It's hot all year round.
It's just a question of how hotit is Our winter, which we're
very proud of, and we all havewarm clothes for that.
The temperature actually goesdown to, I think, 21 degrees
centigrade.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
Yeah, which would be oh that's like a 70 or 80
something, I think it's probably70, yeah, so it looks like
latitude.
You're like the lower part ofmexico, okay, so just think of
being in like puerto vallarta orsomething but you need to
remember that the uh, the way,the the weather patterns work,
(21:17):
right.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
You know where I mean , for example, california.
California gets really coldwhen it feels like, depending on
which side of the hills you'reon in San Francisco, right.
If you're on the Millbury side,you're okay, and if you're on
the San Francisco side, you knowthe old twain quote about the
coldest winter I ever knew wassummer.
San Francisco, right.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Right.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
Yes, so there's that kind of thing as well.
We're fortunate with ourweather right, we, it could be a
lot worse.
And I think we're fortunatethat the you know, the easiest
job in the world is a weathermanin bombay.
Yeah, because you don't evenhave to look out of the window.
Yeah, right, you just look atyour calendar, you know exactly
what the temperature is it'sgonna be 85 today with a low of
(22:04):
sunny.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
But put that in Celsius for you all.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
Or it's either hot, hotter or rain.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
That's right.
They just put up a symbol,exactly.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
The food here is good , which is a good reason to live
here.
You have excellent food,particularly seafood, a bit
spicy by the average americanstandards but we love it and you
know you get all kinds of goodstuff here and food and I know
like vegetarianism is verypopular, but I feel like more in
(22:38):
different parts of india, wheresome people are just all
vegetarian.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
Um, if I recall, you're not vegetarian, but I
remember going out to eat.
They're like like instead oflike do you want spice?
You're not spicy.
You want veg or not veg andlike that's my options, like I
don't know.
So are most people vegetarianthere at there are some.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
My wife's a vegetarian, but she more for
ethical reasons rather thanreligious, but there are a lot
of people who are vegetarian,maybe about I don't know 20, 30%
of the city.
Oh, okay, and then you've gotthese rather extreme vegetarians
who have something called jainfood, which is vegetarian food,
no meat and no root vegetableseither.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
Wow, is that a religious thing too?
Speaker 3 (23:29):
That's a religious thing as well.
And then you've got the vegans,who of course take it to a bit
of an extreme.
No cheese.
All kinds of people will behere.
Really, I'm a food that used tomove on its own volition when
it was alive.
I believe we struggle to findour way to the top of the food
chain.
There's got to be a reason forthat.
(23:49):
It's strong.
You've got to respecteverybody's wishes, Of course
yeah, is it expensive to livethere?
Speaker 1 (23:57):
if someone wanted to go and stay there, well, Karen,
I don't know if you rememberRuth Stevens.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
No.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
Was an advisory at Customer Asset.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
Oh, okay.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
Ruth was over here and she, you know she preached
out with laughter when we passeda hoarding over here you know
one of those billboards right,Big billboards on the roads and
she clutched my hand and youknow I still have the marks of
her nails on my forearm and shecouldn't stop laughing and you
know I still have the marks ofthe nails on my forearm and she
couldn't stop laughing and youknow we had to pull the car over
(24:28):
and you know what she recovered.
And she pointed to Hoarding andshe said it's only in Bombay
that you could see this, but itadvertised apartments for only
the equivalent to 1.7 milliondollars for a two-bedroom.
And what made her laugh wasonly yeah, even in manhattan we
have the grace not to say onlyright it's starting at.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
You know, it is what it is starting out.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
Yeah, but you can't say only for it.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
Let me see yeah, yeah , but how would that equate to
American dollars?
Is that American dollars?
Oh, that's US dollars.
Speaker 3 (25:07):
Yeah, that's right, yeah, so it's very expensive.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
So it's like New York Well real estate is very
expensive.
Speaker 3 (25:15):
The rest is not so much, so it is one of the more
expensive cities in the world tolive in.
It's not's not a singapore ornew york, but it's not cheap
yeah, right, okay, you know renthere is, uh, it's.
It's a very big part of all ourlives.
Finally having a place of yourown in bombay is is a it's quite
a win for most people.
(25:36):
Yeah, you work in a lifetime toget one and it's.
It's not cheap, unless yourparents left you something,
because their parents left themsomething, which is a sensible
way to get something.
But if you picked your parentswrong and they didn't leave it
to you, then you've got a hardlife ahead of you.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
Picked your parents wrong.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
Yeah, is rent really expensive as well.
Speaker 3 (25:58):
Yeah, yeah it is.
It is indeed.
So it's far more expensive tobuy than to rent because the
rental rates yields here arerelatively low, but it's
expensive.
So let me put things inperspective.
Kristen, it's about dependingon how senior you are.
(26:18):
It will be somewhere betweenthe third and half of your
salary would be in rent.
It's not like Manhattan.
It's not cheap.
You wouldn't get by with 15,20% of your income being rent.
That would be very few people.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
Okay, and then what about if someone wanted to go
visit India and wanted to staysomewhere more affordable?
What town would you recommendto go visit?
Speaker 3 (26:43):
It's a very large country, right?
Yeah, um, so I mean it's.
It's not large compared to theus or the ussr, but it's massive
in terms of the differences.
Right as you drive throughamerica, there are differences,
but they're not as significant,if you would.
Right as you drive to the uk,um, the accents change every,
(27:07):
you know 50 kilometers every 100kilometers, for sure.
Right in india, the languageschange, the food changes, the
culture changes, what's, youknow, appropriate changes.
Things change literally every50, 100, 100, 150 kilometers.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
Oh wow, and they can change quite dramatically.
Speaker 3 (27:26):
So remember, we're talking about a country which is
about the size of WesternEurope and has, you know, I
think about I don't know 2,000,2,500 languages.
Whoa Dalek spoken here.
Oh,500 languages Dalek spokenhere.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
Oh my goodness.
Speaker 3 (27:44):
Maybe at least 4 or 5 hundred distinct types of
cuisine, maybe more.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
Was India.
Multiple countries at one point.
Speaker 3 (27:56):
India was more of an idea than countries, actually,
until it all came together.
It's been many things over manyyears.
It's got a very long history.
So there have been times when aparticular ruler has dominated
a big chunk of what is now India.
Right, there have been timeswhen invaders have come.
(28:17):
It's a long history.
So, to answer your question, youknow there are a lot of things
to see in India.
Right, there are some of thehighest mountains in the world,
some of the most beautifulbeaches, there's forest, there's
one of the driest places in theworld, there's one of the
wettest places in the world.
There is one of the coldestplaces in the world to live in,
(28:41):
colder than Siberia, which issaying something, uh, uh.
One of the highest places inthe world that's lived in
through the year, through the,through the, um, yeah, because
you know the temperatures falldramatically, and so it's a.
It's a permanent establishmentat 17 000 square feet, oh, sorry
, 17 000 feet feet above Mithilevel, wow, so that gives you a
(29:04):
sense.
So that's about 13,000 squarefeet.
Divided by three would be about5,500 meters.
Okay, and people live therethrough the year so it gives you
a sense of you know MountEverest is in India.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
Is that right?
No, it's in Nepal, nepal.
Speaker 3 (29:20):
It's in Nepal, but I think the Gans jagas in india.
You've got a lot of very, veryhigh mountains in india as well,
okay, and the everest range,you know the himalayas come
right down through india.
So you can, you know, so youcan go all the way from there to
deserts.
We've got, uh, forests, allkinds of forests, right.
(29:43):
So there's pretty mucheverything you want to see and
from a cultural perspective,it's incredibly rich because you
know whether you're looking atmusic or dance or art, you know
you get everything.
So it really depends on whatyou want to see.
It depends on what you like,right.
If you, if you want to bedancing you, you know, at a
fiesta, then Goa is your place.
(30:04):
Right.
If you want to sit in a desertand hear the desert singers sing
from, you know, a kilometeraway, you can hear them clearly,
and maybe have Mick Jagger ofthe Rolling Stones besides you,
rajasthan is the place you wantto go to.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
What is it?
Speaker 3 (30:18):
called.
If you want to be Rajasthan,which is, uh, the place of kings
oh, okay raja is a king, oh Isee it star on this place.
So you know the place of kings.
If you want to be uh, you knowwhere you can see the snow peaks
while you have a wood firewarming.
You know your feet.
Maybe you want to go to sitlagate or rani gate, right?
(30:41):
If you want to be sitting on alake in a little wooden
houseboat, right.
Kashmir.
If you want to learn how to skiand don't want to pay Swiss or
Aspen prices, then you knowanother part of Kashmir, right?
It goes on.
It really depends on what youwant to do.
Oh, okay.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
All right, so, but I think, most like Americans, we
think of india.
You go there for yoga and Ithink everyone is all zen and,
like I, you know, and we knowthere's just a billion people
there, right, so it's verycrowded, um, but that's
interesting.
Like I don't think of lakes andI don't think it's the driest
place in the world and I knowthere's mountains um, and, of
(31:19):
course, the taj mahal is huge,but is there?
Is there other like cooldestinations like the Taj Mahal?
Speaker 3 (31:27):
I don't know why everyone goes there.
When you go to Delhi, right soyou know the Taj and the place
called Agra, right.
Then there's a place calledJaipur and then there's a place
called Delhi.
Delhi is the capital, so theyform something called the Golden
Triangle.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
Oh OK.
Speaker 3 (31:42):
Now I'm going to speak to you about Delhi for a
moment.
Yeah, then we'll talk aboutAgra, and then we'll talk about
Jaipur, just to give you a senseof the Golden Triangle and how
much there is, and I'm onlygoing to talk to you about
monuments.
Since you raised the Taj, soDelhi has got seven cities which
have been built one on top ofthe other.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (32:02):
And a lot of them are still around, right.
So when you go to Delhi, youcan actually see what they call
the old fort Purana Keela, youcan go from there to Tughlaqabad
, you can see the red fort, andall these are cities of Delhi.
The Nordic city of Delhi andthe seven cities of Delhi are
(32:22):
still extant in the present daycapital right, all the way up to
present day Delhi right.
So now just think of the amountof history that you have over
there.
So you've literally got maybetwo and a half thousand, three
thousand years of history, right, you've got it all the way from
the ancient cities of Delhi,which is the.
(32:44):
Have you heard of this epicpoem called the Mahabharata, the
great story?
Speaker 2 (32:50):
No, it's a great story, you said.
Speaker 3 (32:53):
Yeah, the great Indian story, the great story of
India.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
Oh no.
Speaker 3 (32:56):
Mahabharata.
It's the two Indian epics, theRamayana and the Mahabharata.
Have you heard of the Odysseyby?
You know the old Greek epics,the Ramayana and the Mahabharata
?
Have you heard of the Odysseyby the old Greek epics?
No, okay, so there's a guycalled Homer, a blind poet, who
composed the story of Troy andthe fall of Troy and then the
(33:19):
two stories that follow that,one of which was the Odyssey.
About what happens to you.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
Oh, okay.
Speaker 3 (33:25):
So think of those epics, right.
Multiply that by maybe 10 andyou got drama head.
Multiply that by 10 and you gotthe mahabharata, these epics
which were composed, like youknow, thousands of years ago,
included.
Have you heard of somethingcalled the Bhagavad Gita, the
(33:48):
Song of God?
No, okay, it's one of those.
A lot of philosophy, indianphilosophy, which has now become
pretty much global philosophy,comes out of this thing called
the Bhagavad Gita, right?
So the?
Are you familiar with the termkarma?
Oh, yeah, that one I know yeah.
Okay.
So karma is explained there.
(34:09):
Dharma, which is the duty.
Karma is what happens, right,dharma is what you do.
Think of it that way.
Oh, okay, so all that's out of.
So, in the Mahabharata, it's thestory of these two sets of
cousins, five brothers on oneside and a hundred brothers on
the other, who go to war witheach other.
And Krishna, who's God, is acharioteer to one of the
(34:37):
brothers.
And this brother, called Arjuna, who's the greatest man with a
bow and arrow who ever lived, ishesitating to start killing his
cousins.
The armies are all theirfriends, they're all relatives.
And so he says you know, I mean, how can I do this?
(34:58):
I mean, you know, I'm killingmy own family, right?
And the own family is busytrying to kill him.
And Krishna, who's God, explainsto him that it's your duty,
right, and what happens as aresult of your doing your duty,
which is karma, is not in yourhands.
That is in somebody else'shands, but what is in your hands
(35:20):
is to do your duty.
So Arjuna proceeds todisembowel the enemies.
But that story of what Krishnatells Arjuna is the Bhagavad
Gita, the song of God.
So now the Mahabharata wasbased, theoretically, in one of
(35:41):
the ancient cities of Delhi andthe remains of that city can be
found, theoretically, in one ofthe ancient cities of Delhi.
Oh, okay, and the remains ofthat city can be found beneath
the old fort which I told youabout earlier, the Paranakila.
So you know where I'm comingfrom.
Carol is just monument-wiseDelhi.
Every so many meters you findanother spectacular piece of
history.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
Okay, so if you like history, Delhi's a great place
to go.
Speaker 3 (36:06):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Now you come down to Agra.
Now they moved the capitalbetween Delhi and Agra, the
Mughals, and so there is, asidefrom the Taj, there's a fort in
Agra, and in that fort, the guywho built the Taj built it in
memory of his wife.
Right, it was her tomb, it'sher tomb, the.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
Taj Mahal was her tomb.
Speaker 3 (36:29):
Yeah, it's a tomb, yeah, yeah, oh my god I didn't
realize that, wow, you really,really are fond of your wife and
you built something like that,right, yeah, so the old man got
holed up in a single room theformer emperor of India by his
son, right, who got rid of himand became the emperor in his
(36:52):
place and he holed up the oldman, who was nearly blind by
that time.
And across the river from thisfort, where he was holed up in
this prison, was the Taj Mahal,which he couldn see because he
could see a little mirror, tinylittle mirror, and looking into
(37:13):
the mirror, you could see hiswife's tomb right, and she spent
his last years staring in thatmirror and remembering what they
were.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
Oh, okay, wow.
Speaker 3 (37:27):
So that's Meantime.
When you go to the other, thelast leg of the Golden Triangle,
you get to Jaipur, where nowthat was the Mughals, and this
is the Rajputs who fought theMughals.
Oh, is the Rajputs who foughtthe Mughals.
Okay, right, where you know,one of the Rajput rulers returns
(37:50):
home from battlefield woundedand he calls to the people in
his fort to let him in and hiswife comes out and she looks at
him and says you're not myhusband.
And says what my husband?
Only You're not my husband.
Oh, what You're not my husbandoh okay, and he says please let
me in, I'm wounded, Please letme in.
She said no, my husband comesover only in one of two ways
(38:10):
victorious or dead.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
Not wounded.
Speaker 3 (38:14):
And he goes back and he comes back dead.
But that gives you a sense of.
And then what she does isbecause now the Mughals are
going to overtake the palace.
She and all the women walk intoa whacking great bonfire, one
(38:35):
after the other, one after theother.
So when the Mughals invade,there's not a person left alive,
because oh my goodness are youvictorious?
Speaker 2 (38:42):
yeah, so they're a bit extreme.
Speaker 3 (38:44):
Now imagine all that history and the and the forts
are there and the palaces arethere, and you know you've got
all this stuff within that onelittle triangle do the, do the
modern people?
Speaker 2 (38:56):
some carry on some of those thoughts and beliefs
still, or or that's just oldhistory, very proud people the
rajputs are.
Speaker 3 (39:04):
You know they're, they're the warrior caste and
they are proud people and youknow a lot of this lives on many
things like, for example, poloright, which is a very popular
sport right where you ridearound and, polo polo.
Speaker 2 (39:20):
Oh, okay, okay, yeah, yeah yeah, you've got that uh
in many parts of the.
Speaker 3 (39:23):
Okay, the horses yeah , you've got that in many parts
of the US as well, right, Not asmuch here, but yeah, I mean
England, I hear it yeah.
You've got it in some of thesouthern states and you've got
quite a polo, but it's very welloff people Equally over here.
It's very well off a play polobecause you need to own a string
(39:44):
of horses and it's quite aprinces and kings kind of game
and so you've got all thesevestiges of the royalty in those
kinds of the food, the palaces,the way they live.
It's quite interesting how thehistory percolates through the
(40:04):
ages.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
And is the caste system still prevalent, where
people are definitely in theircaste, sadly, yes, okay.
Speaker 3 (40:13):
In fact I was horrified.
I didn't know this until COVID,but my mom wrote a book about
this chap who was mygreat-great-grandfather wrote a
book about this chap who's mygreat great grandfather right
now.
He um was very against thecaste system at the turn of the
last century and he wasexcommunicated by our community
(40:34):
because he would hang withpeople who are considered below
the caste system.
You know, he did all kinds ofthings and there there was at
that time a little-known lawyerfrom South Africa who came back
to India and spent six monthswith him and learned a lot from
him.
That little-known lawyer gotbetter known to the world as
Mahatma Gandhi.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
Oh, wow.
Speaker 3 (40:56):
So he's literally the guy who inspired Gandhi, which
is what my mom's book was calledthe man who Inspired Gandhi.
So in our family we believethat we're, you know, completely
non-castist.
Until I read a book by isabelwilkerson.
You know the new york timesreporter, who's a black woman in
(41:16):
america.
So strike one black, strike twowoman, so you can imagine that
she's not having terribly easylife.
Um, she writes about, uh, herbook's called cast.
If you haven't read it youshould do.
It's about how color in americais like caste in india.
And you know, when I read thebook I realized how casteist I
(41:39):
was.
Uh, until then I was brought upin this cocoon of you know, the
super silliness, supersilliness that we're.
You know we're really decentpeople and we don't believe in
caste.
And you know, I didn't knowabout this great, great
grandfather of mine but I didknow that as a family where you
know, we consider ourselves verydecent people.
Speaker 2 (42:01):
And then when I read the book and you should read it,
yeah, consider ourselves verydecent people and then when I
read the book and you shouldread it, yeah, because okay,
yeah, so I mean, so the castthere is kind of like our racism
here like yeah, well, we're notracist like you don't want to
believe you're racist, butthings you do you do because
like you're racist, but likeyeah and maybe because it's
learned yeah, maybe it's morelearned and that's just the way
it is.
But like, no, wait a minute ifthat person was white, but that.
(42:23):
But I still have that sameopinion, but I'd be scared or
whatever.
Speaker 3 (42:28):
Um yeah, okay, I definitely.
Which is you don't realize it.
At least, garyl, you knowyourself aware enough to be
aware of that.
I wasn't that self-aware and Ididn't realize the things that I
was doing.
You know it's just becauseyou're programmed that way and
despite believing that you're agood person and that you know
it's so yes, it's that gassystem is still alive and well,
(42:50):
unfortunately, I think we'redoing a lot of the country to
try and get rid of it.
But you know, it's beenpernicious for, you know,
centuries and it's going to taketime.
I don't know if you saw thatvideo on YouTube about this guy
who's got a bunch of school andcollege kids and he basically
(43:13):
says there's a hundred bucks,there's a race to be run,
there's a hundred bucks forwhoever gets in first.
And he says well, all the kidswhose parents have, who know
both their parents and they'venot been divorced parents are
still together, take two stepsforward.
So a bunch of kids take twosteps forward.
A bunch of kids don't move.
Will all those who never had toworry about whether they get
food at home take two stepsforward?
(43:35):
And it goes on like this rightWill all those who completed
high school without worryingabout where they find the money
to do that take two steps?
And it goes on right.
And now you've got a bunch ofmainly white kids who are like
10 feet away from the end line,and you've got a bunch of mainly
black kids.
So way at the back right.
(43:55):
And you say okay, now you've gotyour penalties.
Now run your race Right Now.
Whoever wins gets the hundredbucks.
Now you know that if you allstart at the same time in the
same place, the kids at the backwould probably smoke you guys.
But that's not the reality.
The reality is you're rightwhere you are because of nothing
that you did, because everysingle thing that got you two
(44:15):
steps forward was something thathappened for you, which
somebody else did for you, andthat's pretty much, yeah, you
must look for that video.
It's fascinating.
It's in.
Yeah, you must look for thatvideo.
Speaker 2 (44:23):
It's fascinating.
It's in the.
Speaker 3 (44:26):
US, but it's universally applicable, because
that is privilege.
Speaker 2 (44:30):
Yes, we are just about out of time.
We didn't cover too much, but Ido have my rapid fire questions
.
But, kristen, if there'sanything else that you wanted to
, we talked a lot about history.
Speaker 1 (44:40):
I know it was very fascinating.
No, I'm fine, it was reallyinteresting.
Thanks so much for sharing.
Speaker 2 (44:46):
It learned a lot.
Okay, so you're ready for some,as hopefully, you read the
rapid fire question.
So, popular religion there, um,I you said there's a ton, but
is there, like I think ofhinduism?
Is that the main religion or isthere a?
Speaker 3 (45:01):
combination.
Yeah, that is the main religion, okay, but there is Hinduism
and there's Hinduism.
There's all kinds of Hinduism.
Speaker 2 (45:08):
Oh, okay, just like lots of Christianity, I guess.
Speaker 3 (45:10):
Yeah, like lots of Christianity, except you know so
much more scale in some ways.
Oh, okay.
But yeah, but Hinduism is themain religion.
But having said that, I meanyou know, we've got hundreds of
millions of Muslims and we mustbe having tens of millions of
Christians, okay, and we've gotour Jews, we've got our
Zoroastrians, we've got so manyreligions out here.
(45:32):
You've got the Baha'is, you'vegot I mean, it just goes on and
on.
Okay, because there is Religionis big in.
Speaker 2 (45:37):
India Is billion people in India, I think 1.4
when last counted, I think.
And there's like 8 billionpeople on the earth, I think
roughly Nine now, I think.
So you have like one ninth ofthe population in India.
Speaker 3 (45:52):
We're now the fifth largest economy in the world.
We'll be the fourth largest ina few years and we'll very soon
be the third largest, after theUS and China.
So it's huge.
Speaker 2 (46:02):
California, I think, like in the top 10 of the
largest economies.
It's kind of crazy.
Speaker 3 (46:07):
So it used to be.
You know that the US stateswere bigger than India, but now
I think that's become.
Speaker 2 (46:15):
Oh, wow.
I'd love to have anotherconversation about just business
in India, because there's somuch, you know, I'm just curious
how that changed by the time oftoday.
Speaker 3 (46:30):
But okay, so on to so what?
What do you have for breakfast?
What's a typical breakfastthere?
Well, I'm South Indian right,and so well, I prefer a South
Indian breakfast.
So we've got these thingscalled idlis, which are little
rice.
Uh, you've had the idlis, alittle rice things.
Um, they're a little white, uh,steamed, um, I'd call them
dumplings, but they're notreally.
But they're, uh, they're verynice.
(46:51):
So you guys gotta have them isit?
Speaker 2 (46:53):
is it like?
Speaker 3 (46:53):
we have these things on those which are like pancakes
okay, crisp, uh, savorypancakes, think of it that way
okay with chutneys on the sideand that kind of stuff.
So I'm quite spoiled and we'vegot a cook who does that Nice 7
am every morning, I set myselfdown to a South Indian breakfast
.
Speaker 2 (47:12):
That's fantastic.
Okay, and what is like one ofyour favorite meals?
Speaker 3 (47:17):
Speaking of cooking like, just like an afternoon for
dinner, sunday dinner, in mylittle triangle of South Bombay
which is ringed in by our twoclubs and our home, and one of
the clubs is where I go sailingfrom, the other club is where I
swim and our home and thatlittle triangle, we've got
(47:37):
Trishna, which gives you themost incredible butter, garlic
crap.
Oh, okay.
It's worth the price of a planeticket from wherever you are in
the world.
Speaker 2 (47:47):
Butter garlic what did you say?
Speaker 3 (47:50):
Crab, Crab okay.
Speaker 2 (47:54):
Oh yeah, we have crab meat, of course.
Okay, butter garlic crab.
Speaker 3 (47:59):
We've got Olympia, which doesn't seem to have
changed the prices in the 30years, 40 years that I've been
eating there.
They give you a bill and youlook at it and you say are you
sure you charge for everything?
Yes, we charge for everything.
You sure you don't want toincrease your prices?
No, we don't want to increaseour prices.
It's incredible food.
Oh wow, oh okay, that's Islamicfood Super.
(48:22):
And then we, and it goes on.
I can go on for the rest, ohokay, we can have an episode
just about the food, food ofIndia.
Speaker 2 (48:29):
That would be a fun episode, alrighty.
And what's the money called?
And if an American was going togo to India, what's is the best
used credit card, you know?
Or exchange the money.
Speaker 3 (48:42):
Yeah, credit cards work pretty much everywhere and
the money is called the rupee,and what you do in India now is
we hardly use notes, it's alldigital, so we all have these
little apps.
Google has got one calledGoogle Pay, so if you're
American, you may want todownload that and make it to
your bank account.
And you just go scanning QRcodes wherever you go and paying
(49:03):
with that.
Everything is app driven noweverybody in india has got a
smartphone.
Things have changed a lot garenthe last few years okay, this
financial digital now when Itravel internationally, right?
um, you know it used to be.
Uh, you know we had thesecredit cards and you're always
worried about whether they work.
I don't know if you rememberthey used to keep feeding my
(49:24):
credit card when I lived in theus, right?
and because it would keep and itwas always a bit of attention.
So now you go to othercountries and you say, I mean,
why are these guys so backward?
They want to get their acttogether.
I mean, it's so easy to get afinancial act together.
We take it very much forgranted now in ind India how
easy it is, money wise right nomore science, no more, it's all
(49:46):
electronic and it's.
It's really cool to pay the.
You know the person sitting onthe street selling your
vegetables, um, what we call abhaji wali, which is the lady
who sits on the street in amarket and she gets paid on her
cell phone with oh, she does toookay, so you think?
Those markets always want cashoh, wow, that's interesting.
Okay, guys, that were yeah Imean, that's what you think of
(50:07):
india is very high tech, um,tech hub, all right.
Speaker 2 (50:12):
Yeah, so many graduates, right, like a million
graduates a year from college.
Very smart people, um, and so,and what's the closest place to
surf is surfing.
Speaker 3 (50:22):
You guys are on kind of a coast but you're on a sea,
bombay, um it's.
It's not hawaii, but you've gota little bit of surfing down
south of bombay.
And then there's a beach, uh,not far from my home city of
mangalore, where there's thislovely young lady, whose uh name
I now forget, who runs asurfing school.
She's sort of a friend of afriend or relative of a friend
(50:46):
or something like that.
She's won quite a lot ofinternational awards in surfing
and now she's come home to teachpeople how to surf over here.
So she's got a school downsouth and all over.
Oh, okay.
Speaker 2 (50:59):
Okay, very nice, so that'd be probably inexpensive.
Speaker 3 (51:03):
stay along the southern coast, south of like
carnotica or something yeah,carnotica is where you can surf
here a beach called malpy, Ithink, is where she does it st
mary's island okay, I think it'ssomewhere around there and uh,
yeah, that's just a little northof where I'm from originally,
so carnotica, yeah, but you getdiving out around here.
(51:26):
You get some very nice divingin the Andamans and then again
Lakshmi.
Of course, the ultimate divingis in the Maldives.
Speaker 2 (51:33):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (51:35):
Perfect sailing in Bombay.
You couldn't do better.
Oh nice, Steady, strong breeze,Safe as blazes.
Speaker 2 (51:40):
I mean it's just Are there any sharks in the waters
there?
Speaker 3 (51:46):
In Bombay?
Probably not, the poor thingswould get poisoned.
But we do get dolphins.
I should send you a picture ofone that my daughter took.
You need to have super fastreflexes.
She's actually got a picture ofa dolphin in the foreground and
the skyscrapers of Bombay inthe back.
It's incredible.
That's unexpected.
Speaker 2 (52:08):
That's unusual.
Yeah, I mean you'd think oflike Hawaii, or some palm trees
or something in the back orother boats.
Oh yeah, okay, yeah, send ussome pictures so well.
Thank you so much for joiningus.
Speaker 3 (52:19):
And thank you so much for making the time.
Yeah, yeah us and thank you somuch for making the time.
Yeah, yeah, I know it took awhile to get it figured out.
Speaker 2 (52:23):
But the time difference, yeah, this makes me
a little challenging, but thankyou for staying up late for us
yeah, thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (52:29):
This was really interesting pleasure lovely
meeting.
Speaker 2 (52:32):
kristen, thanks for listening.
If you enjoyed the podcast, canyou please take a second and do
a quick follow of the show andrate us in your podcast app, and
if you have a minute, we wouldreally appreciate a review.
Following and rating is thebest way to support us.
If you're on Instagram, let'sconnect.
(52:54):
We're at where next podcast.
Thanks again, thank you.
Hi, welcome to our podcast when Next Travel with
Kristen and Carol.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
I am Kristen and I am Carol, and we're two long-term
friends with a passion fortravel and adventure.
Each episode, we interviewpeople around the globe to help
us decide where to go next.
So today we have AJ Rowecalling in from India.
He is an old friend of mine andhas spent a lot of time in the
(00:40):
US.
And where are you now, aj?
Speaker 3 (00:43):
I'm in Bombay.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
So Bombay, is it Mumbai now, or?
Speaker 3 (00:49):
No Mumbai, yeah, no Mumbai.
Sorry, I should have beenpolitically correct.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Yeah, so Bombay is the old name I remember that's
how I first heard of Mumbai,back when I first heard about it
.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
I just knew this is new to me because I, when I I
was goog, I always look up wherewe're talking and I put in
Bombay and it's Mumbai, and thenI kept trying to correct it.
I know why it wasn't working.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
We have a brochure for confusing the rest of the
world by renaming our cities.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
There you go.
How long ago?
What was the reason and howlong ago did that happen?
Speaker 3 (01:24):
20 years ago and I think it's.
Every time the politician feelsthe need for a few new votes,
he renames the city or sherenames the city.
Yeah, let's not be sexist aboutit.
Both stripes of politicians dothat kind of thing.
It's confusing for everybodyelse and very confusing for
people who live in the city.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
And since a lot of the cities were named, bombay is
not named by the British, itwas named by the Portuguese.
It means beautiful bay, but youknow the Bombay and the British
called it Bombay and that'swhat it was, until you know.
We decided no, no, no, no,that's not what it was, it was
something else before the cityexisted.
(02:05):
And we decided no, no, no, no,that's not what it was, it was
something else before the cityexisted.
And we decided to rename itMumbai, which caters to a class
of people, whose tiny, minusculelittle bunch of bishop folks
who lived on the island, theseven islands that made up
Bombay, before they were joinedtogether and they had a deity
(02:27):
called Momba Devi, and so theysaid she is the original.
You know the reason for thename it's the name for Bombay
it's all very confusing, okay,okay, very good, all right and
I'm sure there's somebody elsethere before that and you know,
I guess we'll go back far enoughin time.
We'll find those people andrename it yet again okay, and
(02:48):
how many people live in mumbai?
Not sure, but I think about 18million or 20 million or
something like that enormouscity.
Let me put it in perspective.
Carol yep, you start drivingfrom the I'm way at the southern
tip of Bombay, right down here.
You start driving, you drivefor five hours and you're still
(03:09):
in the city.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Oh my gosh, it's like LA times five yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
Wow, we got.
Yeah, like LA times fivewithout the freeways.
Oh without the freeways andslightly more traffic.
So with that as well, wemustn't forget that.
Okay, and you're still like?
Citing the cows and the mopedsand the rickshaws, or are those
just on the smaller streets Ithink the cows, and yeah, there
(03:37):
are some streets which wouldhave them, but by and large now
you're just fighting very baddriving.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
In India.
You know we're not greatbelievers and curtsy, and we're
all brought up in a scarcityeconomy, so we believe that.
You know we've got to grabevery last square inch of space
on the road.
Okay, and uh, scared that youget lonely if I don't come and
snuggle my car right up next toyou, right, I mean if you're
that much away.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Yeah, yeah, my recall is also like passing.
You're on a two-lane road, carsgo in one in each direction and
they pass.
They go in the other lane andthen they just cut over right
before they're late to go headon.
Are accidents pretty common?
Speaker 3 (04:24):
Yeah, but I think most accidents areone country in
the world.
I don't know this for a fact,but I guess.
But because we don't drive veryfast, because it's part of many
of us and the growth of logs,we don't really get up much
speed.
I think we probably have a verysmall percentage of fatalities
in the accidents.
I think we're okay.
(04:45):
We bump against each other.
I don't think there's a car inBombay which hasn't got bump
bugs all over it.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
Oh, so it's more just like bumper cars all the time
Not dangerous, not physicallydangerous.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
Boom, boom boom.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
They need to have bumpers around the cars so they
don't get bumped, or some sortof different bumper system
around the whole car so theydon't get bumped, or some sort
of different, uh, bumper systemaround around the whole car so
they don't get all.
Or you just kind?
Speaker 3 (05:08):
of think about that.
Yeah, maybe rubber all aroundor something like that.
Yeah, that's a bad idea okayand so money in that yeah, right
, okay.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
And then how much time have you spent in in the us
?
Speaker 3 (05:21):
I feel like quite a bit so about four or five years
all told, and I lived in the usas opposed to bit Four or five
years all told.
I lived in the US as opposed tomerely visiting About five
years.
I think you know Something likethat Is that back when we
worked together.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Yeah, you were living there.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
Yeah, that's where we used to work together.
Then, for a couple of yearsafter that, you got married and
disappeared to Denver.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
No, boulder, boulder right, that's where you were to
Denver, no Boulder.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
That's where you were , and then I moved to Manhattan.
At that time, I've lived inLondon for a couple of years.
I lived in Paris for five years, I stayed very briefly in
Singapore and I spent a lot oftime in cities all over India.
So I lived in San Francisco,new York, london, paris, bombay,
(06:06):
delhi, calcutta, madras, whichis now Chennai, bangalore, which
is now Bengaluru.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
And a little bit in Singapore.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Okay.
And so what's your favoriteplace to live in the world?
You've been so global Bombay,bombay, okay, so that you know
an American would go oh,favorite place.
You don't hear that very much.
Your favorite place to live inIndia.
Of course you have family thereand friends, but like outside
of that, those kind of thoseconnections, what do you love
(06:37):
about Bombay?
Speaker 3 (06:40):
There's much to love about Bombay.
It's sort of like New York, insome ways London.
You know these great cities.
They're very different from thecountries they're in, aren't
they?
They have their history, theyhave their culture.
They've got so many thingsgoing on.
Nobody ever sleeps in thesecities, right, Right, you know,
(07:00):
they're 24-7.
And Bombay is one of thosecities which is on the edge all
the time, right, I mean, it'sreally.
You know, they call it maximumcity.
And unless you've lived here,unless you, I mean, you've
visited, of course, Carol, andyou know what it's like, right,
and you know, there's noise allthe time.
There's something going on allthe time.
(07:21):
It's unrelenting.
Is Bollywood headquarteredthere?
Yeah, yeah, Bollywood, which isnow no longer the biggest cinema
industry in India is out ofBombay, so you're forever seeing
actors and actresses and allkinds of people.
I mean, bombay is pretty largeas you get it, both the scale of
(07:45):
it and the number of people.
I mean Bombay is, you know,it's pretty large as you get it
and the both the scale of it andthe number of people in it, but
also it's very culturally listand it's got quite a quite a
history.
So in addition to the richculture, right, it's got quite a
history in many, many strands,if you would.
You know, in business, inindustry, there are all kinds of
things about bombay.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
It's a fascinating city okay, and how old is it?
Like I mean because america, Iwould say new york is 230 years
old.
Give or take.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
It's not doing the math, but but uh, I'll put
things in perspective by indianstandards, right, because most
of our cities are thousands ofyears old, right?
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Oh, okay, so this one is relatively recent.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
It's about 400 years old, okay.
But let me put things inperspective, carol.
We've got a building here inBombay and the building has had
people sitting in the offices inthat building since before
America existed, since beforeAustralia was discovered, as it
were, right, so it's not veryold by Indian standards, but
it's pretty darn old by anybodyelse's right.
(08:51):
So the building's called GreatWestern and, uh, captain Cook,
you know, the uh, yeah, captainJames Cook, the guy who
circumnavigated Australia, thefirst, uh, brit to do so,
actually had an office there,and that office subsequently,
about 200, 300 years later,became a friend's office, and so
I've actually sat at the desk,oh wow, which is where the desk
(09:14):
that Captain Cook would havebeen, and overlooking the ocean.
So it's, yeah, it's got to go.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Oh, I just think of Johnny Depp.
I don't know if he's the one.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
Sorry, you just think of Johnny Depp.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
I don't know if he's Sorry, you just think of Johnny
Depp Depp, he's a famous actor,johnny.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
Depp, yeah, yeah, yeah, the Pirates of the
Caribbean, yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
Yeah, all playing on Memorial Day.
I guess there's five of them orsomething.
My daughter was watching someof them and they just played all
day long.
So it's kind of like New.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
York that it's kind of like new york, that it's
known for probably great food.
And how about?
Like what is it?
A melting pot.
Like new york is so amazingbecause it's such a melting pot.
You know different cultures.
Are there a lot of culturesthat end up settling in india?
Speaker 3 (09:54):
not as much so as new york, but it's.
It's got its own fair share,yeah and there must be.
I don't know.
I've got friends from almostevery part of the world here
it's.
It's not, you know, like newyork.
You've got an ethiopianrestaurant, you've got a tibetan
food restaurant, so you don'thave that kind of variety over
here, but you do have a lot ofindian variety oh, okay, so you
(10:18):
know communities and gardens, sothe different parts of bombay
which have different cultures.
so there's a community calledthe millions and there are
different parts of Bombay whichhave different cultures.
So there's a community calledthe Tamilians and there's a part
of Bombay which is veryTamilian in nature and the
lingua franca there would beTamil, which is the you know.
There's another part of Bombaywhich is Gujarati Jain in nature
, there's another part, etcetera, it goes on, and then
(10:39):
you've got these enormous swathsof Bombay which are just
completely mixed up.
So you know, neighbors would bedifferent religions, different
cultures, different tongues,different eating habits,
different.
You know everything.
And we all managed to get on.
Of course we get along verywell indeed because we hardly
(10:59):
know our neighbors.
It's a grand Bombay thing, likea grand New York thing, to not
know the person next door to you, but it's a fine old tradition.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
Okay that you do get to know each other, that you do
know each other or that youdon't.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
No, no, you don't you don't.
Okay, nobody's got the time toget to know anyone.
The reason why Bombay is sosafe.
It's a very safe city.
It is so safe.
Right, it's a very safe city,it is.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Okay, that's going to be one of my questions, I think
one of the reasons why it's sosafe.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
Well, you know my wife, you remember Nita Darrell.
Yeah, she used to be the headof a school and before that, one
of the courses she'd teach isSpanish, and so she had a
relationship with a school inSpain and all, all Spanish kids
would come into India and, uh,you know they did.
Kids would go to Spain andthey'd have this cultural
(11:48):
program a couple of times everyyear.
And when the Spanish kids camehere, uh, you know, they stroll
around the um slums, aroundBombay and it's completely safe,
right, they just walk in andand they find it surreal, they'd
say, look, you know we'd getkilled if we walked into an area
like this in our home countries, because you know the people
(12:09):
with guns and knives and youknow just be completely offended
.
And here are people welcomingthem in to their homes and you
know it's abject poverty.
It's not that these are well-offpeople, I mean it's really,
it's completely safe safe, I'vegot a theory which is
everybody's too busy makingmoney to rip you off or to
(12:29):
murder you.
Right, there's far more moneyto be made on the next deal than
you know hitting you on thehead okay, but thievery is not
an easy way to make money forsome people probably.
There's so much stuff going on.
There are many better ways tomake money, but that said, we do
have a pretty.
Have you heard of a guy calledShantaran?
Speaker 2 (12:51):
No.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
Shantaran.
He's an Shantaran.
He's an Australian criminal whoescaped to Bombay and he used
to live in a slum just down theroad from where I live, maybe a
couple of kilometers down theroad, and he live maybe a couple
of kilometers down the road andhe wrote a book about his time
(13:12):
here.
Absolutely fascinating.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Okay, it's worth reading if you haven't.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
Okay, and how do you spell Shantaran
S-H-A-N-T-A-R-A-N?
Speaker 2 (13:19):
Okay, I was close.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
R-O-N-R-A-N.
His real name is GregoryGregory.
Gregory Gregory, what Greg?
I know him as Greg so he's thefree surnames so he's a free man
in India.
He was a criminal in Australiamarried to a princess, so in
India or Australia, india, I'massuming right no, no, no,
(13:43):
neither he's married to aprincess.
Gregory.
Gregory David Roberts.
Yeah, that's right.
Three last names.
Gregory David Roberts, he'smarried to an Italian princess,
or an Austrian princess, orsomething like that.
Wow.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Well, that's a turnaround story, huh.
Speaker 3 (13:59):
Yeah, it really is.
It's a fascinating story, oh,so I want to read his book.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
I'm actually reading this book on Wallace Waddles.
It's about the science ofgetting rich.
It's very fascinating.
It's like there is a science toit and I'm like I don't know.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
I wonder if you've read that book.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
I haven't, I should.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
I'll tell you about it.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
It's pretty amazing.
That's a whole other topic.
You just do yeah.
So what do you do for fun?
Speaker 1 (14:28):
What do you do for fun?
What a beautiful day it lookslike in India.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
Sale, sale.
The nice thing about Bombay isthat it's like a little
peninsula.
It's like a little India stuckonto the big India right, and so
we've got water on three sidesof us.
It's like little India, youknow, stuck on to the big India
right, and so we got water onthree sides of us, and so we got
a lot of good sailing over here.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Oh, okay, so.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
I've got a couple of boats and you know, being on the
water is life.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
Nice and there's a very famous water area.
I hear the Maldives.
How far is that from you?
I hear people go to that allthe time.
It's like the Maldives, that's.
How far is that from you?
I hear people go to that allthe time that's further south of
us.
Okay.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
Right, and that's not India, that's another country.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Oh, it is a country.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
Indian islands called the Lakshmadip, which is just
above the Maldives, the Maldivesdown here.
You've got Bombay up here, soit's a straight line.
And if you sail south fromBombay, you go through the
Lakshmipuri, you go through theMaldives and the next stop is
Antarctica.
Oh okay, oh, wow, okay, okay,yeah, let me just draw a
(15:36):
straight line down from Bombay,and then you know what I'm
talking about.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
So Bombay is kind of like the Bay Area, but like
opposite, the Bay Area has likea peninsula going up and down.
This is like downward peninsula.
Yeah, wow.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
It's almost like the opposite here, where the Bay
Area's got all the water comingin.
This is just a little bitcoming out.
Bombay was actually sevenislands, right, Depending on how
you define an island.
Okay, and so Bombay was a partof the dowry of a princess of
Portugal who got married to theKing of England and she brought
(16:10):
the island along with variousother bits and pieces and that
was handed over.
Now the seven islands were kindof connected.
Well, four of them wereconnected in the low tide and
they became distinct islands inthe high tide.
So we have an area in Bombaycalled Paiduni, which literally
(16:35):
means wash feet.
Okay, so if you can imagine apart of New York called feet
down feet, wash down, right,that's Paiduni for you right.
Okay, right, that's by booniefor you, right, okay, and um, it
would be covered in water,right, uh, through the high tide
and the monsoons a lot of thetime, right, but uh,
occasionally it would you know,drain out and you could cross
from one island to the other.
(16:55):
Okay, and the problem was thetide came in very quickly and
the tide here is can be quiteimpressive.
It's usually about six to eightfeet, but it can be as much as
18.
Let's go out for a walk to thenext island.
Whoops, there's 80 feet ofwater between me and where I
want to go, right.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
How often does that happen?
At least once a year, well, no,no.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
It happens every monsoon.
The tides get really quiteferocious here.
Monsoons are not quitehurricanes, but just little
hurricanes down a notch andthat's what you got.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
What time of year does that happen?
Speaker 3 (17:33):
About now, another couple of weeks, and we'd be in
the middle of the monsoon, sowe'd be thundering and lightning
away, but anyway.
So what happened was thoseseven islands.
So what happened was thoseseven islands got joined bit by
bit, and so Bombay was literallybuilt on garbage and rotting
palm fronds you know coconutfronds and they just fill up the
(17:55):
water with.
You know this stuff.
And then you know it actuallycame to a point where they could
put earth and concrete on topof it, and so you've got this.
When I look at the the map.
It just looks like it's one bigpiece, um, and it's kind of
there's a lot of water and it'slike there's water up this way
and there's a canal going thatway where I live, the sea on
(18:16):
this side is about, uh, maybe 50, 100 meters away, and the sea
on that side, on the other side,is maybe a kilometer and a half
a kilometer away.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Kilometer kilometer and a half away maybe a mile
away, so you have some views,huh.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
That's it, sorry.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
You have some views.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
Yeah, yeah, we're very fortunate.
Yeah, I'll send you a picture.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Okay, and do you live in a high rise?
I assume everything is highrise there.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
Yeah, we're on the 18th floor, so by Bombay
standards that's not very highanymore, because now we've got
these 60-story and 80-storybuildings 80-story buildings.
Oh my goodness, I mean they'vegot these enormous buildings
that maybe I lie.
They were to be 18, but theyactually stopped at 72, because
there's some height restrictionor something like that.
(19:04):
There's all kinds of troubleabout that.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
They're enormous.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
Do you all get earthquakes there?
Yeah, Not so much.
In Bombay, All the new birdingsare earthquake-proofed.
You know the kind which?
Speaker 2 (19:14):
can take the earthquakes.
Oh yeah, they can handle theshaking.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
We don't get much.
We do get the occasional one,it's more.
We're not on the fault lineshere, we're exactly below them.
So we're not a california, okay, but there are parts of india
which are, you know, riddledwith fault lines, but we
fortunately not so much.
Though I do remember once I wasin singapore and I remember
watching the news and I stillthere's an earthquake and I
(19:37):
called home and I couldn't getthrough, oh, but fortunately the
wife and kids had slept throughit so it didn't disturb them
one little bit.
But it was quite scary for me,you know, several hours away and
worrying myself sick about thisearthquake.
But it's rare.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
Okay, and since you guys are on the water in kind of
like California, where you havelike the water's coming from
the west, is it cooler there?
What's the climate like?
Speaker 3 (20:03):
Where we are in the building we're at, remember, we
have through ventilation right,because we've got the sea on
three sides and so we get a lotof ventilation, so we're quite
blessed.
We don't necessarily need theair conditioning, but I mean,
people do use it.
The wife and I hardly use airconditioning, it's you know.
You're fine with a fan, oh okay, which.
You're fine with a fan, oh okay, which is kind of unusual in
(20:24):
Bombay.
But Bombay has got threeweather conditions right it's
hot, it's very hot and it'sraining.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
I knew oh, and then the rain.
Okay, got it, but still hot ormaybe humid at that time.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
Well, it cools down a bit during the rains, but yeah,
it's still hot.
It's by American standards.
It's hot all year round.
It's just a question of how hotit is Our winter, which we're
very proud of, and we all havewarm clothes for that.
The temperature actually goesdown to, I think, 21 degrees
centigrade.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
Yeah, which would be oh that's like a 70 or 80
something, I think it's probably70, yeah, so it looks like
latitude.
You're like the lower part ofmexico, okay, so just think of
being in like puerto vallarta orsomething but you need to
remember that the uh, the way,the the weather patterns work,
(21:17):
right.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
You know where I mean , for example, california.
California gets really coldwhen it feels like, depending on
which side of the hills you'reon in San Francisco, right.
If you're on the Millbury side,you're okay, and if you're on
the San Francisco side, you knowthe old twain quote about the
coldest winter I ever knew wassummer.
San Francisco, right.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Right.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
Yes, so there's that kind of thing as well.
We're fortunate with ourweather right, we, it could be a
lot worse.
And I think we're fortunatethat the you know, the easiest
job in the world is a weathermanin bombay.
Yeah, because you don't evenhave to look out of the window.
Yeah, right, you just look atyour calendar, you know exactly
what the temperature is it'sgonna be 85 today with a low of
(22:04):
sunny.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
But put that in Celsius for you all.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
Or it's either hot, hotter or rain.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
That's right.
They just put up a symbol,exactly.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
The food here is good , which is a good reason to live
here.
You have excellent food,particularly seafood, a bit
spicy by the average americanstandards but we love it and you
know you get all kinds of goodstuff here and food and I know
like vegetarianism is verypopular, but I feel like more in
(22:38):
different parts of india, wheresome people are just all
vegetarian.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
Um, if I recall, you're not vegetarian, but I
remember going out to eat.
They're like like instead oflike do you want spice?
You're not spicy.
You want veg or not veg andlike that's my options, like I
don't know.
So are most people vegetarianthere at there are some.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
My wife's a vegetarian, but she more for
ethical reasons rather thanreligious, but there are a lot
of people who are vegetarian,maybe about I don't know 20, 30%
of the city.
Oh, okay, and then you've gotthese rather extreme vegetarians
who have something called jainfood, which is vegetarian food,
no meat and no root vegetableseither.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
Wow, is that a religious thing too?
Speaker 3 (23:29):
That's a religious thing as well.
And then you've got the vegans,who of course take it to a bit
of an extreme.
No cheese.
All kinds of people will behere.
Really, I'm a food that used tomove on its own volition when
it was alive.
I believe we struggle to findour way to the top of the food
chain.
There's got to be a reason forthat.
(23:49):
It's strong.
You've got to respecteverybody's wishes, Of course
yeah, is it expensive to livethere?
Speaker 1 (23:57):
if someone wanted to go and stay there, well, Karen,
I don't know if you rememberRuth Stevens.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
No.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
Was an advisory at Customer Asset.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
Oh, okay.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
Ruth was over here and she, you know she preached
out with laughter when we passeda hoarding over here you know
one of those billboards right,Big billboards on the roads and
she clutched my hand and youknow I still have the marks of
her nails on my forearm and shecouldn't stop laughing and you
know I still have the marks ofthe nails on my forearm and she
couldn't stop laughing and youknow we had to pull the car over
(24:28):
and you know what she recovered.
And she pointed to Hoarding andshe said it's only in Bombay
that you could see this, but itadvertised apartments for only
the equivalent to 1.7 milliondollars for a two-bedroom.
And what made her laugh wasonly yeah, even in manhattan we
have the grace not to say onlyright it's starting at.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
You know, it is what it is starting out.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
Yeah, but you can't say only for it.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
Let me see yeah, yeah , but how would that equate to
American dollars?
Is that American dollars?
Oh, that's US dollars.
Speaker 3 (25:07):
Yeah, that's right, yeah, so it's very expensive.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
So it's like New York Well real estate is very
expensive.
Speaker 3 (25:15):
The rest is not so much, so it is one of the more
expensive cities in the world tolive in.
It's not's not a singapore ornew york, but it's not cheap
yeah, right, okay, you know renthere is, uh, it's.
It's a very big part of all ourlives.
Finally having a place of yourown in bombay is is a it's quite
a win for most people.
(25:36):
Yeah, you work in a lifetime toget one and it's.
It's not cheap, unless yourparents left you something,
because their parents left themsomething, which is a sensible
way to get something.
But if you picked your parentswrong and they didn't leave it
to you, then you've got a hardlife ahead of you.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
Picked your parents wrong.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
Yeah, is rent really expensive as well.
Speaker 3 (25:58):
Yeah, yeah it is.
It is indeed.
So it's far more expensive tobuy than to rent because the
rental rates yields here arerelatively low, but it's
expensive.
So let me put things inperspective.
Kristen, it's about dependingon how senior you are.
(26:18):
It will be somewhere betweenthe third and half of your
salary would be in rent.
It's not like Manhattan.
It's not cheap.
You wouldn't get by with 15,20% of your income being rent.
That would be very few people.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
Okay, and then what about if someone wanted to go
visit India and wanted to staysomewhere more affordable?
What town would you recommendto go visit?
Speaker 3 (26:43):
It's a very large country, right?
Yeah, um, so I mean it's.
It's not large compared to theus or the ussr, but it's massive
in terms of the differences.
Right as you drive throughamerica, there are differences,
but they're not as significant,if you would.
Right as you drive to the uk,um, the accents change every,
(27:07):
you know 50 kilometers every 100kilometers, for sure.
Right in india, the languageschange, the food changes, the
culture changes, what's, youknow, appropriate changes.
Things change literally every50, 100, 100, 150 kilometers.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
Oh wow, and they can change quite dramatically.
Speaker 3 (27:26):
So remember, we're talking about a country which is
about the size of WesternEurope and has, you know, I
think about I don't know 2,000,2,500 languages.
Whoa Dalek spoken here.
Oh,500 languages Dalek spokenhere.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
Oh my goodness.
Speaker 3 (27:44):
Maybe at least 4 or 5 hundred distinct types of
cuisine, maybe more.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
Was India.
Multiple countries at one point.
Speaker 3 (27:56):
India was more of an idea than countries, actually,
until it all came together.
It's been many things over manyyears.
It's got a very long history.
So there have been times when aparticular ruler has dominated
a big chunk of what is now India.
Right, there have been timeswhen invaders have come.
(28:17):
It's a long history.
So, to answer your question, youknow there are a lot of things
to see in India.
Right, there are some of thehighest mountains in the world,
some of the most beautifulbeaches, there's forest, there's
one of the driest places in theworld, there's one of the
wettest places in the world.
There is one of the coldestplaces in the world to live in,
(28:41):
colder than Siberia, which issaying something, uh, uh.
One of the highest places inthe world that's lived in
through the year, through the,through the, um, yeah, because
you know the temperatures falldramatically, and so it's a.
It's a permanent establishmentat 17 000 square feet, oh, sorry
, 17 000 feet feet above Mithilevel, wow, so that gives you a
(29:04):
sense.
So that's about 13,000 squarefeet.
Divided by three would be about5,500 meters.
Okay, and people live therethrough the year so it gives you
a sense of you know MountEverest is in India.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
Is that right?
No, it's in Nepal, nepal.
Speaker 3 (29:20):
It's in Nepal, but I think the Gans jagas in india.
You've got a lot of very, veryhigh mountains in india as well,
okay, and the everest range,you know the himalayas come
right down through india.
So you can, you know, so youcan go all the way from there to
deserts.
We've got, uh, forests, allkinds of forests, right.
(29:43):
So there's pretty mucheverything you want to see and
from a cultural perspective,it's incredibly rich because you
know whether you're looking atmusic or dance or art, you know
you get everything.
So it really depends on whatyou want to see.
It depends on what you like,right.
If you, if you want to bedancing you, you know, at a
fiesta, then Goa is your place.
(30:04):
Right.
If you want to sit in a desertand hear the desert singers sing
from, you know, a kilometeraway, you can hear them clearly,
and maybe have Mick Jagger ofthe Rolling Stones besides you,
rajasthan is the place you wantto go to.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
What is it?
Speaker 3 (30:18):
called.
If you want to be Rajasthan,which is, uh, the place of kings
oh, okay raja is a king, oh Isee it star on this place.
So you know the place of kings.
If you want to be uh, you knowwhere you can see the snow peaks
while you have a wood firewarming.
You know your feet.
Maybe you want to go to sitlagate or rani gate, right?
(30:41):
If you want to be sitting on alake in a little wooden
houseboat, right.
Kashmir.
If you want to learn how to skiand don't want to pay Swiss or
Aspen prices, then you knowanother part of Kashmir, right?
It goes on.
It really depends on what youwant to do.
Oh, okay.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
All right, so, but I think, most like Americans, we
think of india.
You go there for yoga and Ithink everyone is all zen and,
like I, you know, and we knowthere's just a billion people
there, right, so it's verycrowded, um, but that's
interesting.
Like I don't think of lakes andI don't think it's the driest
place in the world and I knowthere's mountains um, and, of
(31:19):
course, the taj mahal is huge,but is there?
Is there other like cooldestinations like the Taj Mahal?
Speaker 3 (31:27):
I don't know why everyone goes there.
When you go to Delhi, right soyou know the Taj and the place
called Agra, right.
Then there's a place calledJaipur and then there's a place
called Delhi.
Delhi is the capital, so theyform something called the Golden
Triangle.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
Oh OK.
Speaker 3 (31:42):
Now I'm going to speak to you about Delhi for a
moment.
Yeah, then we'll talk aboutAgra, and then we'll talk about
Jaipur, just to give you a senseof the Golden Triangle and how
much there is, and I'm onlygoing to talk to you about
monuments.
Since you raised the Taj, soDelhi has got seven cities which
have been built one on top ofthe other.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (32:02):
And a lot of them are still around, right.
So when you go to Delhi, youcan actually see what they call
the old fort Purana Keela, youcan go from there to Tughlaqabad
, you can see the red fort, andall these are cities of Delhi.
The Nordic city of Delhi andthe seven cities of Delhi are
(32:22):
still extant in the present daycapital right, all the way up to
present day Delhi right.
So now just think of the amountof history that you have over
there.
So you've literally got maybetwo and a half thousand, three
thousand years of history, right, you've got it all the way from
the ancient cities of Delhi,which is the.
(32:44):
Have you heard of this epicpoem called the Mahabharata, the
great story?
Speaker 2 (32:50):
No, it's a great story, you said.
Speaker 3 (32:53):
Yeah, the great Indian story, the great story of
India.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
Oh no.
Speaker 3 (32:56):
Mahabharata.
It's the two Indian epics, theRamayana and the Mahabharata.
Have you heard of the Odysseyby?
You know the old Greek epics,the Ramayana and the Mahabharata
?
Have you heard of the Odysseyby the old Greek epics?
No, okay, so there's a guycalled Homer, a blind poet, who
composed the story of Troy andthe fall of Troy and then the
(33:19):
two stories that follow that,one of which was the Odyssey.
About what happens to you.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
Oh, okay.
Speaker 3 (33:25):
So think of those epics, right.
Multiply that by maybe 10 andyou got drama head.
Multiply that by 10 and you gotthe mahabharata, these epics
which were composed, like youknow, thousands of years ago,
included.
Have you heard of somethingcalled the Bhagavad Gita, the
(33:48):
Song of God?
No, okay, it's one of those.
A lot of philosophy, indianphilosophy, which has now become
pretty much global philosophy,comes out of this thing called
the Bhagavad Gita, right?
So the?
Are you familiar with the termkarma?
Oh, yeah, that one I know yeah.
Okay.
So karma is explained there.
(34:09):
Dharma, which is the duty.
Karma is what happens, right,dharma is what you do.
Think of it that way.
Oh, okay, so all that's out of.
So, in the Mahabharata, it's thestory of these two sets of
cousins, five brothers on oneside and a hundred brothers on
the other, who go to war witheach other.
And Krishna, who's God, is acharioteer to one of the
(34:37):
brothers.
And this brother, called Arjuna, who's the greatest man with a
bow and arrow who ever lived, ishesitating to start killing his
cousins.
The armies are all theirfriends, they're all relatives.
And so he says you know, I mean, how can I do this?
(34:58):
I mean, you know, I'm killingmy own family, right?
And the own family is busytrying to kill him.
And Krishna, who's God, explainsto him that it's your duty,
right, and what happens as aresult of your doing your duty,
which is karma, is not in yourhands.
That is in somebody else'shands, but what is in your hands
(35:20):
is to do your duty.
So Arjuna proceeds todisembowel the enemies.
But that story of what Krishnatells Arjuna is the Bhagavad
Gita, the song of God.
So now the Mahabharata wasbased, theoretically, in one of
(35:41):
the ancient cities of Delhi andthe remains of that city can be
found, theoretically, in one ofthe ancient cities of Delhi.
Oh, okay, and the remains ofthat city can be found beneath
the old fort which I told youabout earlier, the Paranakila.
So you know where I'm comingfrom.
Carol is just monument-wiseDelhi.
Every so many meters you findanother spectacular piece of
history.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
Okay, so if you like history, Delhi's a great place
to go.
Speaker 3 (36:06):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Now you come down to Agra.
Now they moved the capitalbetween Delhi and Agra, the
Mughals, and so there is, asidefrom the Taj, there's a fort in
Agra, and in that fort, the guywho built the Taj built it in
memory of his wife.
Right, it was her tomb, it'sher tomb, the.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
Taj Mahal was her tomb.
Speaker 3 (36:29):
Yeah, it's a tomb, yeah, yeah, oh my god I didn't
realize that, wow, you really,really are fond of your wife and
you built something like that,right, yeah, so the old man got
holed up in a single room theformer emperor of India by his
son, right, who got rid of himand became the emperor in his
(36:52):
place and he holed up the oldman, who was nearly blind by
that time.
And across the river from thisfort, where he was holed up in
this prison, was the Taj Mahal,which he couldn see because he
could see a little mirror, tinylittle mirror, and looking into
(37:13):
the mirror, you could see hiswife's tomb right, and she spent
his last years staring in thatmirror and remembering what they
were.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
Oh, okay, wow.
Speaker 3 (37:27):
So that's Meantime.
When you go to the other, thelast leg of the Golden Triangle,
you get to Jaipur, where nowthat was the Mughals, and this
is the Rajputs who fought theMughals.
Oh, is the Rajputs who foughtthe Mughals.
Okay, right, where you know,one of the Rajput rulers returns
(37:50):
home from battlefield woundedand he calls to the people in
his fort to let him in and hiswife comes out and she looks at
him and says you're not myhusband.
And says what my husband?
Only You're not my husband.
Oh, what You're not my husbandoh okay, and he says please let
me in, I'm wounded, Please letme in.
She said no, my husband comesover only in one of two ways
(38:10):
victorious or dead.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
Not wounded.
Speaker 3 (38:14):
And he goes back and he comes back dead.
But that gives you a sense of.
And then what she does isbecause now the Mughals are
going to overtake the palace.
She and all the women walk intoa whacking great bonfire, one
(38:35):
after the other, one after theother.
So when the Mughals invade,there's not a person left alive,
because oh my goodness are youvictorious?
Speaker 2 (38:42):
yeah, so they're a bit extreme.
Speaker 3 (38:44):
Now imagine all that history and the and the forts
are there and the palaces arethere, and you know you've got
all this stuff within that onelittle triangle do the, do the
modern people?
Speaker 2 (38:56):
some carry on some of those thoughts and beliefs
still, or or that's just oldhistory, very proud people the
rajputs are.
Speaker 3 (39:04):
You know they're, they're the warrior caste and
they are proud people and youknow a lot of this lives on many
things like, for example, poloright, which is a very popular
sport right where you ridearound and, polo polo.
Speaker 2 (39:20):
Oh, okay, okay, yeah, yeah yeah, you've got that uh
in many parts of the.
Speaker 3 (39:23):
Okay, the horses yeah , you've got that in many parts
of the US as well, right, Not asmuch here, but yeah, I mean
England, I hear it yeah.
You've got it in some of thesouthern states and you've got
quite a polo, but it's very welloff people Equally over here.
It's very well off a play polobecause you need to own a string
(39:44):
of horses and it's quite aprinces and kings kind of game
and so you've got all thesevestiges of the royalty in those
kinds of the food, the palaces,the way they live.
It's quite interesting how thehistory percolates through the
(40:04):
ages.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
And is the caste system still prevalent, where
people are definitely in theircaste, sadly, yes, okay.
Speaker 3 (40:13):
In fact I was horrified.
I didn't know this until COVID,but my mom wrote a book about
this chap who was mygreat-great-grandfather wrote a
book about this chap who's mygreat great grandfather right
now.
He um was very against thecaste system at the turn of the
last century and he wasexcommunicated by our community
(40:34):
because he would hang withpeople who are considered below
the caste system.
You know, he did all kinds ofthings and there there was at
that time a little-known lawyerfrom South Africa who came back
to India and spent six monthswith him and learned a lot from
him.
That little-known lawyer gotbetter known to the world as
Mahatma Gandhi.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
Oh, wow.
Speaker 3 (40:56):
So he's literally the guy who inspired Gandhi, which
is what my mom's book was calledthe man who Inspired Gandhi.
So in our family we believethat we're, you know, completely
non-castist.
Until I read a book by isabelwilkerson.
You know the new york timesreporter, who's a black woman in
(41:16):
america.
So strike one black, strike twowoman, so you can imagine that
she's not having terribly easylife.
Um, she writes about, uh, herbook's called cast.
If you haven't read it youshould do.
It's about how color in americais like caste in india.
And you know, when I read thebook I realized how casteist I
(41:39):
was.
Uh, until then I was brought upin this cocoon of you know, the
super silliness, supersilliness that we're.
You know we're really decentpeople and we don't believe in
caste.
And you know, I didn't knowabout this great, great
grandfather of mine but I didknow that as a family where you
know, we consider ourselves verydecent people.
Speaker 2 (42:01):
And then when I read the book and you should read it,
yeah, consider ourselves verydecent people and then when I
read the book and you shouldread it, yeah, because okay,
yeah, so I mean, so the castthere is kind of like our racism
here like yeah, well, we're notracist like you don't want to
believe you're racist, butthings you do you do because
like you're racist, but likeyeah and maybe because it's
learned yeah, maybe it's morelearned and that's just the way
it is.
But like, no, wait a minute ifthat person was white, but that.
(42:23):
But I still have that sameopinion, but I'd be scared or
whatever.
Speaker 3 (42:28):
Um yeah, okay, I definitely.
Which is you don't realize it.
At least, garyl, you knowyourself aware enough to be
aware of that.
I wasn't that self-aware and Ididn't realize the things that I
was doing.
You know it's just becauseyou're programmed that way and
despite believing that you're agood person and that you know
it's so yes, it's that gassystem is still alive and well,
(42:50):
unfortunately, I think we'redoing a lot of the country to
try and get rid of it.
But you know, it's beenpernicious for, you know,
centuries and it's going to taketime.
I don't know if you saw thatvideo on YouTube about this guy
who's got a bunch of school andcollege kids and he basically
(43:13):
says there's a hundred bucks,there's a race to be run,
there's a hundred bucks forwhoever gets in first.
And he says well, all the kidswhose parents have, who know
both their parents and they'venot been divorced parents are
still together, take two stepsforward.
So a bunch of kids take twosteps forward.
A bunch of kids don't move.
Will all those who never had toworry about whether they get
food at home take two stepsforward?
(43:35):
And it goes on like this rightWill all those who completed
high school without worryingabout where they find the money
to do that take two steps?
And it goes on right.
And now you've got a bunch ofmainly white kids who are like
10 feet away from the end line,and you've got a bunch of mainly
black kids.
So way at the back right.
(43:55):
And you say okay, now you've gotyour penalties.
Now run your race Right Now.
Whoever wins gets the hundredbucks.
Now you know that if you allstart at the same time in the
same place, the kids at the backwould probably smoke you guys.
But that's not the reality.
The reality is you're rightwhere you are because of nothing
that you did, because everysingle thing that got you two
(44:15):
steps forward was something thathappened for you, which
somebody else did for you, andthat's pretty much, yeah, you
must look for that video.
It's fascinating.
It's in.
Yeah, you must look for thatvideo.
Speaker 2 (44:23):
It's fascinating.
It's in the.
Speaker 3 (44:26):
US, but it's universally applicable, because
that is privilege.
Speaker 2 (44:30):
Yes, we are just about out of time.
We didn't cover too much, but Ido have my rapid fire questions
.
But, kristen, if there'sanything else that you wanted to
, we talked a lot about history.
Speaker 1 (44:40):
I know it was very fascinating.
No, I'm fine, it was reallyinteresting.
Thanks so much for sharing.
Speaker 2 (44:46):
It learned a lot.
Okay, so you're ready for some,as hopefully, you read the
rapid fire question.
So, popular religion there, um,I you said there's a ton, but
is there, like I think ofhinduism?
Is that the main religion or isthere a?
Speaker 3 (45:01):
combination.
Yeah, that is the main religion, okay, but there is Hinduism
and there's Hinduism.
There's all kinds of Hinduism.
Speaker 2 (45:08):
Oh, okay, just like lots of Christianity, I guess.
Speaker 3 (45:10):
Yeah, like lots of Christianity, except you know so
much more scale in some ways.
Oh, okay.
But yeah, but Hinduism is themain religion.
But having said that, I meanyou know, we've got hundreds of
millions of Muslims and we mustbe having tens of millions of
Christians, okay, and we've gotour Jews, we've got our
Zoroastrians, we've got so manyreligions out here.
(45:32):
You've got the Baha'is, you'vegot I mean, it just goes on and
on.
Okay, because there is Religionis big in.
Speaker 2 (45:37):
India Is billion people in India, I think 1.4
when last counted, I think.
And there's like 8 billionpeople on the earth, I think
roughly Nine now, I think.
So you have like one ninth ofthe population in India.
Speaker 3 (45:52):
We're now the fifth largest economy in the world.
We'll be the fourth largest ina few years and we'll very soon
be the third largest, after theUS and China.
So it's huge.
Speaker 2 (46:02):
California, I think, like in the top 10 of the
largest economies.
It's kind of crazy.
Speaker 3 (46:07):
So it used to be.
You know that the US stateswere bigger than India, but now
I think that's become.
Speaker 2 (46:15):
Oh, wow.
I'd love to have anotherconversation about just business
in India, because there's somuch, you know, I'm just curious
how that changed by the time oftoday.
Speaker 3 (46:30):
But okay, so on to so what?
What do you have for breakfast?
What's a typical breakfastthere?
Well, I'm South Indian right,and so well, I prefer a South
Indian breakfast.
So we've got these thingscalled idlis, which are little
rice.
Uh, you've had the idlis, alittle rice things.
Um, they're a little white, uh,steamed, um, I'd call them
dumplings, but they're notreally.
But they're, uh, they're verynice.
(46:51):
So you guys gotta have them isit?
Speaker 2 (46:53):
is it like?
Speaker 3 (46:53):
we have these things on those which are like pancakes
okay, crisp, uh, savorypancakes, think of it that way
okay with chutneys on the sideand that kind of stuff.
So I'm quite spoiled and we'vegot a cook who does that Nice 7
am every morning, I set myselfdown to a South Indian breakfast
.
Speaker 2 (47:12):
That's fantastic.
Okay, and what is like one ofyour favorite meals?
Speaker 3 (47:17):
Speaking of cooking like, just like an afternoon for
dinner, sunday dinner, in mylittle triangle of South Bombay
which is ringed in by our twoclubs and our home, and one of
the clubs is where I go sailingfrom, the other club is where I
swim and our home and thatlittle triangle, we've got
(47:37):
Trishna, which gives you themost incredible butter, garlic
crap.
Oh, okay.
It's worth the price of a planeticket from wherever you are in
the world.
Speaker 2 (47:47):
Butter garlic what did you say?
Speaker 3 (47:50):
Crab, Crab okay.
Speaker 2 (47:54):
Oh yeah, we have crab meat, of course.
Okay, butter garlic crab.
Speaker 3 (47:59):
We've got Olympia, which doesn't seem to have
changed the prices in the 30years, 40 years that I've been
eating there.
They give you a bill and youlook at it and you say are you
sure you charge for everything?
Yes, we charge for everything.
You sure you don't want toincrease your prices?
No, we don't want to increaseour prices.
It's incredible food.
Oh wow, oh okay, that's Islamicfood Super.
(48:22):
And then we, and it goes on.
I can go on for the rest, ohokay, we can have an episode
just about the food, food ofIndia.
Speaker 2 (48:29):
That would be a fun episode, alrighty.
And what's the money called?
And if an American was going togo to India, what's is the best
used credit card, you know?
Or exchange the money.
Speaker 3 (48:42):
Yeah, credit cards work pretty much everywhere and
the money is called the rupee,and what you do in India now is
we hardly use notes, it's alldigital, so we all have these
little apps.
Google has got one calledGoogle Pay, so if you're
American, you may want todownload that and make it to
your bank account.
And you just go scanning QRcodes wherever you go and paying
(49:03):
with that.
Everything is app driven noweverybody in india has got a
smartphone.
Things have changed a lot garenthe last few years okay, this
financial digital now when Itravel internationally, right?
um, you know it used to be.
Uh, you know we had thesecredit cards and you're always
worried about whether they work.
I don't know if you rememberthey used to keep feeding my
(49:24):
credit card when I lived in theus, right?
and because it would keep and itwas always a bit of attention.
So now you go to othercountries and you say, I mean,
why are these guys so backward?
They want to get their acttogether.
I mean, it's so easy to get afinancial act together.
We take it very much forgranted now in ind India how
easy it is, money wise right nomore science, no more, it's all
(49:46):
electronic and it's.
It's really cool to pay the.
You know the person sitting onthe street selling your
vegetables, um, what we call abhaji wali, which is the lady
who sits on the street in amarket and she gets paid on her
cell phone with oh, she does toookay, so you think?
Those markets always want cashoh, wow, that's interesting.
Okay, guys, that were yeah Imean, that's what you think of
(50:07):
india is very high tech, um,tech hub, all right.
Speaker 2 (50:12):
Yeah, so many graduates, right, like a million
graduates a year from college.
Very smart people, um, and so,and what's the closest place to
surf is surfing.
Speaker 3 (50:22):
You guys are on kind of a coast but you're on a sea,
bombay, um it's.
It's not hawaii, but you've gota little bit of surfing down
south of bombay.
And then there's a beach, uh,not far from my home city of
mangalore, where there's thislovely young lady, whose uh name
I now forget, who runs asurfing school.
She's sort of a friend of afriend or relative of a friend
(50:46):
or something like that.
She's won quite a lot ofinternational awards in surfing
and now she's come home to teachpeople how to surf over here.
So she's got a school downsouth and all over.
Oh, okay.
Speaker 2 (50:59):
Okay, very nice, so that'd be probably inexpensive.
Speaker 3 (51:03):
stay along the southern coast, south of like
carnotica or something yeah,carnotica is where you can surf
here a beach called malpy, Ithink, is where she does it st
mary's island okay, I think it'ssomewhere around there and uh,
yeah, that's just a little northof where I'm from originally,
so carnotica, yeah, but you getdiving out around here.
(51:26):
You get some very nice divingin the Andamans and then again
Lakshmi.
Of course, the ultimate divingis in the Maldives.
Speaker 2 (51:33):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (51:35):
Perfect sailing in Bombay.
You couldn't do better.
Oh nice, Steady, strong breeze,Safe as blazes.
Speaker 2 (51:40):
I mean it's just Are there any sharks in the waters
there?
Speaker 3 (51:46):
In Bombay?
Probably not, the poor thingswould get poisoned.
But we do get dolphins.
I should send you a picture ofone that my daughter took.
You need to have super fastreflexes.
She's actually got a picture ofa dolphin in the foreground and
the skyscrapers of Bombay inthe back.
It's incredible.
That's unexpected.
Speaker 2 (52:08):
That's unusual.
Yeah, I mean you'd think oflike Hawaii, or some palm trees
or something in the back orother boats.
Oh yeah, okay, yeah, send ussome pictures so well.
Thank you so much for joiningus.
Speaker 3 (52:19):
And thank you so much for making the time.
Yeah, yeah us and thank you somuch for making the time.
Yeah, yeah, I know it took awhile to get it figured out.
Speaker 2 (52:23):
But the time difference, yeah, this makes me
a little challenging, but thankyou for staying up late for us
yeah, thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (52:29):
This was really interesting pleasure lovely
meeting.
Speaker 2 (52:32):
kristen, thanks for listening.
If you enjoyed the podcast, canyou please take a second and do
a quick follow of the show andrate us in your podcast app, and
if you have a minute, we wouldreally appreciate a review.
Following and rating is thebest way to support us.
If you're on Instagram, let'sconnect.
(52:54):
We're at where next podcast.
Thanks again, thank you.
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