Last Days in Powai

For dinner on Sunday 5/22, I went to a street food restaurant down the road from the hotel with Udit, Rose, and a couple other students. We tried the dhai puri, pav bhaji, and the Manchurian noodles. Puri is a fried crispy spherical shell of dough into which different foods and spices are placed. Dhai means “curd,” so the dhai puri had a yogurt-like sauce with many spices. The taste is hard to describe because there are between 10 and 15 items added on top of the puri shell that together encompass all tastes and textures. A plate of 6 cost 70 rupees.

The pav bhaji was my favorite dish at this restaurant. It is made of potato mashed and mixed with many spices. The end result is a soupy red mixture served with a buttered roll. The pav bhaji was made right in front of me on a large hot plate. The first ingredient was a lot of butter, then some onions and other flavorings. The potato was added, the mixture cooked for a while, then finally put into the tray; another sizeable portion of butter was added on top for good measure. The last dish we tried that night was Manchurian noodles, an Indian take on Chinese food. Last time I was in India, I had lots of good Gobi Manchurian (cauliflower). Chinese food in India tastes kind of like Chinese food you can find in the US or China, but with Indian flavors added. The noodles were really good, but not quite as good as some of the Gobi Manchurian I had a couple years ago. After dinner we went out for some cake.

On Monday (5/23), we had another all-day academic session, though this was much less intense than the day before. The day began with Udit teaching some basic programming relating to the creation of Lorenz curves—these curves show how chaotic systems behave. I tried the assignment in Python a few days ago and finally figured it out after a few hours of work. I have already learned more about programming on this trip than I did during the whole India trip in 2014. After the programming work, I went back to lunch at the same restaurant for some more pav bhaji. This time we also tried Chole Bhatura, a huge hollow piece of fried dough served with channa (chickpeas) in a sweet and spicy sauce. After lunch the academics continued with a presentation from WISE, and NGO that works to educate students in underprivileged schools through practical experiments taught by student volunteers. A recent high school graduate who works with WISE, named Suhas, was with our group for many days, attending class and interacting with our group. It was fun to interact with him and I am glad he had a chance to join us in Mumbai.

Apple Training at our hotel in Powai

After Suhas’ presentation, we watched Three Idiots, a comedic movie about the intensity of Indian engineering schools (such as IIT). There were some elements of the movie that would not appear in an American film of the same genre, particularly the songs and dances—these were great and added to the movie’s appeal. It is definitely worth a watch if you have 3 hours to spare (look Three Idiots up on Rotten Tomatoes if you need more justification to watch it).

After the rigorous afternoon academics (see above) Rose and I went to dinner with Udit and a friend of his from school. We had some great paneer, dal, and all kinds of Indian breads. It was fun to meet Udit’s friend—he was actually a former student of Udit’s. After dinner we went to a pastry shop. We split a few desserts: pineapple cake, rainbow cake, and opium cake (similar to chocolate mousse, flavored with poppy seed). The rainbow cake had 6 layers of vibrantly colored cakes with matching decorations on the outer edge of the cake. It looked really pretty but unfortunately tasted like nothing. The opium cake was the best of the three by a longshot.

Walking to the Observer Research Foundation

Tuesday 5/24 marked our 8^th day in India. We got up early and began the day with a presentation about the Mithi River from the Observer Research Foundation in Colaba (South Mumbai, near the Gateway of India). This organization has developed a plan to clean up the river and create public park space along the banks. They are working with the government to try and bring about this change; unfortunately, gathering support for this project has been difficult. The whole cost of the proposed restoration project would cost a fraction of what other cities worldwide have spent on river clean-up and beautification projects, yet funding is still difficult to come by. The first step will be to build a pedestrian/bike bridge across the river connecting the two sides at a critical location for public transportation. Once the people of Mumbai see the horrible state of the Mithi River on a daily basis, they will hopefully realize the need for the restoration an provide the project more support.

At the Observer Research Foundation

After our visit to the foundation, we went for lunch at the Leopold Café, a famous restaurant in Colaba. Many famous people have eaten here; it was a target of the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks because of its cultural significance. Bullet holes still line the walls of the interior. The food was delicious, better than I remember it from two years ago. We had some biryani, two paneer dishes, a vegetable curry, dal, and a mushroom dish; I can’t remember the names right now, but I would probably recognize them if I saw them on another menu. Two of the five curries were items that I had never heard of before. I ordered for the whole table; after I ordered, one of the students asked me “what is the Paneer Kanteka?” I looked right at her and responded “I don’t know.” This was a bit of surprise for most people at the table, but at the end of the meal my choices were validated because everyone enjoyed the food. It is hard to go wrong with Indian food. We ordered a lot of food, and I ate so much that I was not hungry for dinner, a rare occasion.

We walked around the shopping district of Colaba for a while and bought a few souvenirs. We saw a man carving names (English and Hindi) into bronze with a sort of wire saw. It was very cool to watch him carve—if I had more time to wait for him to carve a name, I would have bought one. The 1-hour cab ride back to the hotel was very hot. I felt a little too big for the car, sitting in the middle of the back seat.

Lip smacking mango

In the evening Rose and I got some ice cream and went shopping. The ice cream was from a place recommended by Rachael, a friend from my first trip to India. I bought a really cool shirt from the store—I’ll post a picture once I wear it. Below is a belated picture of me trying out the “underarm baby” instrument form the music session a few days ago.

Trying out the "underarm baby" instrument