December 16th 2017
After twenty hours of traveling we finally arrived in the humid, foreign city that is Mumbai.
I could not wait to grab a cab and drive to our hotel because to me that first drive into a new city is always the most telling. Putting my image of the city to the test, comparing my vision to reality, I realized after just five minutes of leaving the palm tree scattered airport, that my vision of the unkown was completely distraught by the thousands of tiny houses and dirty mud paths that ran through them like dirty, grey brown streams. Even though I had done my reasearch of the slums and the poverty stricken land, it was to my surprise exactly what I had imagined, yet at the same time the exact opposite. The thought of how I would feel never crossed my mind. Me being half Indian myself, I felt such a deep connection to something that was so unknown to me. That feeling I had never encountered before. It was in that moment I realized this trip was going to change me forever. After a half an hour drive we arrived at the hotel which was a palace compared to my previous sights, yet already this seemed like a fantasy to me. The high security, the air contioned grand lobby with high ceilings and plush carpets just did not seem real to me, when just outside a woman who reminds me of my grandma is sitting on the floor, head bowed with just an arm poking out in hope that some green tinted paper will fall into it. So frail and thin. So helpless yet not hopeless. It makes me wonder how two polar opposite worlds exist side by side, mixed up together, however every person belongs to the same race and country and all exist with the hope of achieving the same goal in life. To thrive and be happy, to achieve their own level of happiness whatever it may be and that to me is the most devastatingly sad and most happy moment of my life so far.