January 17 – 9:15AM – Café Universal, Mumbai.

I am sitting in a café near our hotel called Café Universal. What I have found is that there are two types of establishments in Mumbai. One is that for the locals and the other is that for the tourists as well as more westernized Mumbain’s. This separate local and tourist establishments thing is pretty much a worldwide phenomenon, San Francisco included, and I am usually baffled why anyone would travel to a city like San Francisco and go somewhere like Fisherman’s Wharf where you are completely surrounded by other tourists and no San Franciscans. Fisherman’s Wharf isn’t San Francisco. In a more extreme environment like Mumbai, I can now kinda understand this a little though. Here it is really segregated, not a blatant in your face type segregation but pretty obvious if you look around and observe your surroundings. It's interesting position for the one being stared at.

My situation last night was strange. I went into my new favorite small working man's type place, an Indian version of a late night Denny’s or something, although much smaller, just a few booths and one waiter, also not as spiffy as a Denny’s but who likes the spiffy cheapness of those places anyways. This was real India. I sat down by myself in a booth and an older Indian man sitting across from me started staring intensely without breaking eye contact. He then, still without breaking eye contact, told his buddy to turn around and have a look. The second guy turned fully around in his booth and started staring at me as well, both of them less than four feet away from me. I had to get up and leave because I sort of started freaking out, not knowing what to do, where to look, etc. I was actually a little angry as I left because I was hungry and very sick of people staring at me all day long. Thinking back I realize that it was wrong to be angry because the people staring are just interested so they take a good look at you and don’t stop until they are not interested.

The staring is also probably more intensified in the case of the restaurant I was in because white people just don’t go into these real Indian restaurants. When one does it’s a rare occurrence so everyone takes notice. I don’t think that westerners don’t go into these places because they aren’t welcome, it just doesn’t happen. It also may have to do with a society that has come out of thousands of years of a caste system where different levels of the social and economic classes don’t mix. As far as I can tell in these working class cafes, anyone that isn’t a street level Indian just doesn’t come in often and they haven’t for hundreds of years. That’s just the way it is and maybe I’m a jerk for thinking that hidden stratifications in a society don’t apply to me.

Anyways, enough of that, I’m gonna order breakfast now… in one of those tourist restaurants. I do wish that I was in the diner down the street though.