Jasper and I are approaching our one year anniversary of arriving in India. We know this because Facebook keeps reminding me that one year ago we were in Queensland, meeting kangaroos, playing with the hose pipe in Nana’s garden and swimming in the sea for the first time in one of our little lives. We also know that we’ve been here a year because our visas just expired.
This means that at the ripe old age of two and a bit, Jasper is currently living illegally* in a foreign country for the second time in his life. He spent his first 8 months as an illegal in Myanmar (with neither passport nor visa) and now here we are as illegals in India (this time we have passports, but are in-between visas, as it were). Surely that has to be some sort of record in the toddler community? In both cases, Jasper has been a victim of administrative screw-ups, so I have no reason to believe that he is destined for a life of crime, but even so, I wonder if we need to shelve his Baby Frank books until we are back on the right side of the law. Baby Frank is a character in some of Jasper’s favourite books, and has so far committed a bank heist, a jail-break and train robbery, although given that these incidents all occur within a few miles of his home, perhaps he doesn’t deserve to be blamed for the antics of our international super criminal.
Our one-year milestone feels like a good opportunity to look back on the past 12 months and to try and articulate an answer to the frequently asked question of ‘How are you finding Mumbai?’.
Jasper and my arrival in Mumbai came at the end of a long visa process and the resulting 6-month separation from Dylan. We were so happy to be together again that it wouldn’t have mattered where in the world we had ended up. My early impressions of Mumbai were rose-tinted not only by being a party of three once more, but also by the fact that our apartment complex is nothing short of amazing. I was surprised by the apparent sophistication of Mumbai with its digital payments and apps and online access to everything and at first glance I thought it would be easy to get settled. I was also bowled over by the incredible kindness and generosity of our neighbours who embraced Jasper and I and made us feel instantly welcome and at home. In my first few months here, my answer to the question ‘How are you finding Mumbai?’ was ‘I love it! It’s so sophisticated, and the people are so warm and friendly.’
A year on, and the neighbours are still as wonderful as ever, and the sense of community within our apartment compound is still strong, but time has chipped away at some of the promise that I saw in Mumbai and has exposed the reality of living here. And the truth is, as an expat, it’s a really tough city to feel at home in.
As expats, we are in this for the culture shock. There is something inherent in those of us who choose to be expats which magnetically draws us to the idea (and the challenge) of living somewhere different from where we grew up. Not content with simply going on holiday to a destination with brighter sun, spicier food or more flamboyant traditions, we want to get under the skin of a place and really understand what it’s like to be governed by its rules (social and judicial). We love being kept on our toes by the ‘no two days are the same’ nature of expat life but more than anything, we love the annual return to our homeland(s) where everything takes that little bit less effort to achieve. It’s a holiday; a break from our abnormal norm.
But as parents, in the midst of our cultural immersion into India, Dylan and I are trying to create a stable, familiar environment in which Jasper feels at home. Jasper is a ‘third culture kid’ - someone who is growing up in a culture other than that of his parents or of the country of his nationality/ies, and I wonder what his concept of ‘home’ will be as he gets older. (Obviously, I hope that it’s anywhere that I am, but I can already see from his toddler mood swings that that’s wishful thinking.) I see it as predominantly my responsibility (as the non-working parent) to make sure that his experience of the world is balanced, and so in some ways this means that I am fighting against the culture of Mumbai at the same rate as I am trying to embrace it. I want Jasper to enjoy the rich and vibrant culture of India but I also want him to be raised with an understanding of western cultural values from the UK and Australia.
Perhaps this is always what it feels like as an expat parent, but I suspect the battle is more extreme here in Mumbai. There is certainly no doubt that it contributes to my assessment of Mumbai as a hard place to live as an expat. I think my experience of life here is best represented graphically - as a wildly oscillating line graph of ecstatic ‘Yays!’ and disappointed ‘Boos’ over time.
Everything presents itself so well to start with but then the real life experience of it is just soul-crushingly disappointing.
Yay! There’s a pool in our compound. Boo - I have to wear a swimming cap.
Yay! There are two supermarkets within walking distance of our home. Boo - neither of them has everything I need for a weekly shop.
Yay! We can see the sea from our living room. Boo - it’s polluted and dirty and not for swimming.
Yay! Dylan has a great job on an interesting project. Boo - he works 6 days a week.
Yay! We can get tickets to the cricket. Boo - the stadium is dry.
Yay! The grounds are lovely where we live and Jasper can spend loads of time outside. Boo - the pollution is so bad he keeps getting a cough.
Yay! It’s only an hour or so flight to the beach. Boo - it takes longer than that to get to the airport.
Yay! We bought a car. Boo - the traffic is so bad we hardly use it.
Yay! There are lots of kids Jasper’s age in our compound, tons of playdates and mumdates. Boo - most of the kids are looked after by nannies who don’t speak English. Hopes of mumdates dashed.
Yay! There are lots of festivals which means lots of days off. Boo - they are rarely more than a one-day holiday and almost never attached to a weekend.
Yay! India is beautiful. Boo - all the places we most want to visit take days to reach, there are no long holiday weekends and Dylan works 6 days a week.
Yay! There are some outdoor live music events. Boo - they will blow our eardrums out.
Yay! There are tons of delivery services to choose from. Boo - at least 1 in 5 deliveries will be damaged/ missing/ late/ incorrect.
Yay! There are tons of delivery services. Boo - I spend most of my life at home waiting for deliveries.
Yay! There is an app that we can use to allow delivery drivers, guests, teachers and workmen into the compound. What a great, safe way to manage foot traffic. Boo - I am a slave to my phone, constantly buzzing people in and out.
Yay! There is a shop that sells Kellogg’s cereals. Boo - they all expired a year ago.
Yay! There is a new brand of local greek yogurt that’s appeared in the supermarket. Boo - it’s been sitting around outside the fridge for several hours while the staff wondered what to do with it.
I could go on…
I specify that it’s hard to live here as an expat, and in particular, as an expat parent, because I suspect that if we were to assimilate further into the Mumbai culture - with a houseboy, and a cook - more than half of my grievances would vanish under someone else’s watchful eye. But for the sake of Jasper’s grip on reality and those western cultural values I mentioned, for the sake of my sanity, and for the sake of all of our cholesterol levels, I am not willing to take that leap.
The elephant in the room, of course, is that Mumbai is not and will never be Yangon. But then, nowhere will ever be quite like Yangon. Yangon was truly special. It is not only the place where I spent 6 wonderful years, it is also the place where everything good in my life came together: where I met Dylan, where I had Jasper, where I advanced most significantly professionally and where I made some incredible friends. And that all this good in my own life was happening against the backdrop of Myanmar’s accelerated opening-up made for an intoxicating cocktail of optimism and positivity. I can’t hold it against Mumbai that unfortunately it is sitting on the tail end of the hangover that began when we left Yangon after the military coup. Many people thought we were going for ‘hair of the dog’ with our move to Mumbai. ‘Out of the frying pan and into the fire’ was a phrase we heard a lot when we told friends and family that after Myanmar, we were headed to India. And to some extent, I think those people were right. Mumbai certainly burns with a ferocity which Yangon didn’t (or doesn’t) have.
One thing is for certain: Mumbai is a city of extremes. Extreme wealth sitting side by side with extreme poverty. Loud noises, loud smells, loud colours, loud personalities. It’s a city on the move too but unlike in Yangon back in 2015, I don’t feel as though I have been swept up by its momentum. I feel more like I am stuck in a whirlpool, going round and round while everyone else tries to push forwards.
So, a year into what will likely be at least a 6 - 8 year stint, how am I finding Mumbai? I am finding it tough. I am finding it exciting. I am finding it hard to understand and impossible to control. I am finding it a little lonely at times, especially when my faithful companion Jasper (who doubles as my ‘emotional support baby’), is going through a phase of angrily biting me and telling me he doesn’t love me, when all I do is run around helping him to live his very best life. But one thing I am most certainly not finding it to be is boring. And for that reason, I will definitely give it another year (or six) and will continue to grapple with its size and its pace with as much enthusiasm as I can muster. Because that’s just the way I’m wired.
A selection of photos from our first year here.
*I am reliably informed that since our applications have been submitted and accepted by the necessary authorities, we are not exactly here illegally, so please excuse my embellishment - I do it only in the name of storytelling. That said, this reliable information came from the same clown who promised that our phone numbers wouldn’t get disconnected and we are now at 18+ hours’ network darkness and counting …
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