Waiting zones

Mumbai is a crazy city and I love it.  I like the bustle and hustle and the noise and the smells, well almost all the smells.  I've got very comfortable weaving my way through the people and traffic and enjoying watching and joining in with the masses of people getting on with their lives. 

Recently my eye has been drawn away from the action the business and the activities to the quiet waiting that happens everywhere.  People, entirely comfortable in their spaces just waiting.  I do a lot of waiting too, just standing and watching and waiting to see what happens.  Here are two fellow waiters I watched recently:

Well, it's Mumbai, if  you wait long enough something's going to happen.

Balloons of Bombay

I've posted on the big balloons before but I'm still not over them.  How many balloons are sold in a day?  Who is the Balloon Master?  Why are the ones in the packets puny specimens?  How much would I have to pay to get a genuine big balloon?  What would I do with one if I actually bought it?

 "This is a BIG, big balloon" he said, "The biggest" I agreed.

Meanwhile, dejected,  just a street away a balloon seller hawks a smaller big balloon.

Vintage Point

I'm not a car buff, I categorise cars by simple parameters; "big", "small" and their colour but I do appreciate "pretty" and I stumbled on a whole heap of pretty parked up at Kala Ghoda. 

Just sitting there in the car park at were beautiful old Bentleys and Buicks, I knew they were thus because they had their names on their hoods.  They had just been unveiled and were on display prior to taking part in the Mumbai Vintage Car Rally on Sunday.

There was just me and one other camera toting person happily clicking away, a real luxury in camera crazy Mumbai.  There were a lot of officials and mechanics all hovering around awaiting the inevitable onslaught of the photo opportunists. Later I spent a happy ten minutes watching men standing proprietorially beside the cars while their partners snapped them looking proud  but at this stage I had space and time and felt strangely exposed.

I've grown so used to craning and jostling and working on avoiding hundreds of others with cameras that it was odd not to have to, odd but lovely.

By the time I moved on the crowds had moved in and the young men in official white polo shirts were starting becoming agitated about caring for their precious charges.

I said "goodbye and thank you" to the man in the mirror and he said "Thank you for loving the cars without touching".  I hope his day wasn't too stressful.