While we were gone, the bed had been made and dressed up with throw pillows:
Somehow, this is one of the only pictures we managed to take of our hotel room. I guess we were too busy thinking about video production to bother documenting what the room was like. I promptly messed up the bed by collapsing, fully clothed, into the center of it. Aaron downloaded pictures and footage from the cameras onto his laptop and made the first of his video-diary entries (which he did not manage to keep up with over the course of the trip because by the end of each day we were just too tired). We were supposed to have about 45 minutes, so it wasn't long enough to take a real nap and feel rested.
For as upscale as the hotel is, our room was relatively plain. It was nice. It was clean. But, for the most part, the room wasn't overly spectacular, for which I was grateful. I always feel uncomfortable in fancy places, like I'm underdressed, outclassed, and clearly an outsider who will be commanded to leave once someone in power notices I'm there. Thankfully, our room didn't make me feel this way because we were staying in the Tower wing rather than the Palace wing. Our main indulgence was that we had a sea-view room rather than a city-view room.
No joke, this hotel is a fancy-pants place for rich tourists, politicians, celebrities, royalty, and anyone else who expects luxury. The Obamas stayed here. Oprah stayed here. John Lennon stayed here. And I understand why they stayed at the Taj, how if you're going to stay in Mumbai, this hotel is unquestionably the place to stay.
But the whole time we were there, I felt very conflicted about staying in such a lavish hotel. I didn't fully belong there, but I also didn't really want to belong there. I won't deny that I've been fortunate in my life, and have benefited from a position of privilege (especially concerning race, educational opportunities, and employment). I'd like to think, however, that even with my inborn and acquired privilege, I have managed not to take it completely for granted or devolve into an entitled, ungrateful wench (well, I hope so, anyway). I'm not great at being grateful, but I try.
That first day, I was grateful for the quiet of our room. Clean sheets. Bottled water. Privacy, if I thought I wanted or needed it. Distance--not only from the restless clamor of the city, but also from my life back home, from everything familiar, from the petty things I think about on a day to day basis. I was also grateful that I was having this experience at all, and that I was lucky enough to be sharing it with Aaron.
Physiological needs did make themselves more apparent in India, though, and we both realized that it had been almost 12 hours since our last real meal (we had eaten trail mix bars sometime between the Gateway and the rooftop shoots). We were supposed to have dinner with Rob and Biplab when they returned from their shopping. We went back to the lobby to wait for them. And we waited. One hour passed, then two. Ordinarily, this is the kind of situation we would have been peeved about back home. Feeling very hungry and sleep deprived, and then having to wait longer than expected for other people to show up so we could finally eat? Somehow, the situation didn't really even matter to us. We felt the hunger, we felt tired, but we also were content to have a comfortable place to sit.
Rob came through the revolving doors, without Biplab, explaining that the damaged phone was proving more difficult to fix than anticipated. In fact, the phone was currently in pieces at a nearby shop, being meticulously dried and inspected, so Biplab had said for us to go ahead without him. We asked the front desk for a recommendation regarding the restaurants in the hotel, specifying that we were looking for options other than Indian food (Rob's stipulation) and that it couldn't be too expensive or formal (a concern for all of us). We were told to go to the Sea Lounge, one of the casual-dining restaurants that serves high tea and some American/European food.
I wanted to experience everything I could while in India. But after the long day we had, I didn't feel too guilty ordering a safe, boring chicken BLT burger and fries. Aaron and Rob both ordered fish and chips. We sat in a quiet, air conditioned restaurant staffed by impeccably uniformed wait staff. We were three Americans waiting for a friend to join us. We could have been anywhere in the world, really.
Biplab couldn't stay for dinner because he planned to stay at his sister's home that night, and it was a two-hour ride from our hotel, even though it was somewhere in Mumbai. I had the terrible realization that this would quite possibly be the last time I would see Biplab in person. We had only known him for a day, but it had been so much less stressful and also enlightening because he was so knowledgeable, articulate, and open to answering all of my questions about India.
By the time our food arrived, Biplab had left and I was practically slapping myself to stay awake so as to avoid one of those embarassing "I literally fell asleep face-down in my plate of food" moments we've all had as small children (and most of our parents have the pictures to prove it). Rob told us he planned to go back to Elephanta Island so he could visit the caves; we decided that we'd spend the day walking around Mumbai, since this would be our only chance to see any of the city before flying to Hyderabad in the evening.
I was also ready to get closer to India itself: to see the traffic, talk to strangers, see what we could. I needed to get out of the hotel and walk down the street because I needed some grit--I didn't want to remember Mumbai just as it was inside the Taj because that isn't the Mumbai most Indians see or experience. I needed to feel more than just safe and comfortable. I knew India would teach me about wealth, privilege, class, race, culture, and power. It was up to me not to flinch.
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