My Glamorous Day in Mumbai

Unlike most of my friends, I rarely get to go on business trips. Now I know what everyone says: when you have to go on these trips week after week and you are always living out of a suitcase, it gets old pretty fast. Luckily for me, I don’t do it often so they still manage to excite me and my trip to Mumbai this week was no exception.

I was in Mumbai to participate in a roundtable discussion on low-income housing sponsored by the Monitor Group and the World Bank. As most of you know, I have been working on developing a housing microfinance loan product (that we will be launching in the next month in Bangalore!) and have done quite a bit of field research over the past several months on low-income housing issues in Bangalore. Monitor/World Bank are interested in a lot of similar issues and are trying to develop some initiatives to increase home ownership in the low-income sector in Mumbai. It's interesting work because they are trying to do something different than the usual government-subsidized low-income housing, which usually does not work, and are attempting to create market-viable non-subsidized housing developments that would give low-income families an opportunity to buy a home at an affordable but profitable price point. Clearly, financing is a key issue and mainstream banks are not too interested in giving these families traditional mortgages. So, Monitor/World Bank are looking to MFIs (microfinance institutions) as partners to provide affordable financing options for the families. It's cool stuff and I think that a lot of the ideas discussed were quite cutting-edge. I am very interested to see how their project will progress, particularly if they plan on expanding to Bangalore in the future.

The meeting was a pretty amazing experience and for me personally it was really exciting and flattering that I was invited to be there. I got to share some of the research that I worked on and discuss our plan for the product launch, which was great and I got to get some good feedback on it. I won't lie though...the whole thing just made me feel ridiculously glamorous. You know, high-powered meeting, people from all over the country, discussions about big ideas that are attempting to change the fate of low-income families all over India...ooh! Adding to it all was the fact that the conference room was overlooking the Arabian Sea. You all know me...I loved every minute of it. I live for rare and exciting moments like those!

I was just in Mumbai for a really short visit, unfortunately, (came on Tuesday night and left Thursday morning), but I definitely tried to make the most of it. Before the meeting, I made a quick stop to the Gateway of India. That was alright, not the most impressive sight of the day, so I just took the obligatory picture in front of it and left. I wanted to check out Elephanta Island (a hour ferry ride from Nariman Point with apparently some amazing carvings in caves from the 4th century CE…yes, I carry my Lonely Planet India everywhere and have practically read it cover to cover at this point), but it would have taken half a day and I had to race off to my meeting so I couldn’t make it. Next time.

But more fun was after the meeting when I had an hour or so before I had to meet Urvi (the family friend that I was staying with) for dinner. I decided to check out an outdoor market in a very touristy but fun area called Colaba. Oh my god. I loved it! I mean, outdoor markets are just my favorite thing ever…to photograph, to shop, to see, to eat, etc. I can’t get enough, I check them out in every city I go to (literally) and I was pleased that this one did not disappoint. I didn’t have too long, but I managed to work my now-perfected Hindi bargaining skills and got a cute pair of earrings, a sparkly beaded belt and a gorgeous shawl. Needless to say, I was very happy.

I didn’t think that my day could get better at that point. It was 9pm. I had already finished with work, did some sight-seeing and shopping, and I thought that I would just meet up with Urvi, have dinner, and go home and sleep. But no, Mumbai’s fabulous-ness didn’t end there. We went to a seemingly normal casual restaurant…didn’t look like anything fancy, but I was promised that the food would be great so it was fine with me. We were just sipping our ice teas as I was showing off my purchases and talking about the meeting and then BAM BAM BAM in walks Raveena Tandon! Ok, now granted she’s no Aishwarya and hasn’t been in a single movie in 10 years, but still a real live Bollywood starlet one table over from me?! I was ecstatic! It doesn’t get any more Bombay than that! It was a perfect end to a great day!

Now I am back in Bangalore…but itching to get away again. The last two weeks of jet-setting and traveling were quite intoxicating. The good news is that I don’t have to wait too long for the next adventure: Kerala in April!

Btw, check out my pictures from Goa and Hampi on my Picasa page (link below) if you haven’t already.

A.B.