And so to Mumbai

As I have travelled across Asia, it’s been a great privilege to work with some phenomenal teams from Indonesia, Hong Kong (let go of that phone, William!), Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia (hope the Magic Bus trip home was good, guys), Singapore and Japan. Yesterday I arrived on the last leg: Mumbai.
The thing about much of India, is that it’s so easy to think: there’s got to be a better way of doing this. For example, there’s only one X-ray machine coping with a flight-load of customers and that has insufficient power –it appears- to pull any bag more than 25 kilos up its incline. And anyway the observer is spending more time talking rather than looking at the screen for anything suspicious. And pre-ordering the taxi -like a seasoned traveler to avoid being over-charged and taken via half a dozen relative’s shops - the choice is air-conditioning or not. Seat belts don’t come into it.
And of course you know the traffic is like something out of a Mad Max sequel. But for real. Oh, and the first bank I saw was the Ace Co-op, which given recent news seems faintly reassuring.
The beguiling thing - and it is best not to fight it too much - is that it’s still very much a hi-touch nation. And that’s no bad thing. Some of us are wondering what’s happened to our very own high-tech nations, recently.
As always, it’s never either/or, but a bit of both. Respected and adapted.
Have a cool Sunday. I think I need some dahl and a cup of tea.