First impressions

You may not find Bombay an easy sort of place. At least, not to begin with.

As you step off the plane, you first feel the heat, then a ripe waft of warm air. Then, an unfeasibly new, shiny airport and an invariably old, surly customs official. After your perfectly good papers have been shuffled, scrutinised and shuffled again, you head into town, perhaps in one of the noisy little black and yellow 1960s design Fiats that still function as part of the swarm of taxis in Bombay.

Next, as an appropriate introduction to the rhythms of the city, you experience the traffic. For at least a little of the time, your sweaty and smiling taxi-walla cheerfully weaves in and out of lorries and scooters, narrowly missing them. The rest of the time you and he are stuck, engine off, your arm resting on the hot metal window sill, sitting in the jaded torpor of standstill hooting traffic. Perhaps you are on a flyover, able to peer into the open windows of the little flats on either side. You will have noticed that there are people everywhere, crowded onto motorbikes, into cars, onto the streets.