How to Make Macaroni-and-Cheese in Mumbai

Bandra V. Brooklyn

When I told people who knew Mumbai that I was moving there, everyone said, “You need to live in Bandra,” because Bandra is where most American expats live. So I began to picture Brooklyn with an Indian twist. That is, women in saris pushing strollers, an occasional cow wandering down Clinton Street, hipsters. Of course, I was beyond wrong.

Bandra is like a failing city in Nicaragua, or so it seemed to me when, jetlagged and disoriented, I was rescued by my roommate Ally from the grey airport hotel. We took a cab with open windows through the heat, fumes, and traffic across a confusion of highways past slums to Bandra. I saw moldering concrete buildings, security gates, ragged palms, and vendors squatting on damp sidewalks. Up in our fifth floor apartment, we could barely speak over the noise of traffic, and the air smelled unclean -- like exhaust and rotting vegetation. Walking to a coffee shop with Ally, I hated the sludge on the sidewalks and crossing the street (Californians beware: drivers do their best to run you down), and was uneasy with the stares we got (white girls are rare, even in expat land). Back at the apartment, I told myself that I’d get used to Bandra. I didn’t believe it.

But two weeks later, typing in a sunny expat café, I’m mostly used to Bandra. And I may even like it (despite the fumes, traffic, noise). Maybe Bandra really is a little like Brooklyn. It’s thirty minutes north of downtown -- a old cobblestoned village swallowed by the big city sprawl, full of trees, dogs, shops, kids. But it’s still India. And India is a deeply foreign place, where nothing is easy or apparent. It’s hard to find a light-bulb in Bandra, and it’s impossible to find ground coffee. If you take a rickshaw, the driver will not know where you are going. He won’t understand your accent. If you get there, you will not know you’ve arrived because fancy bars, restaurants and movie theatres are hidden away in grungy concrete towers or down narrow alleys. When I’m in a good mood, this gives Bandra a covert charm -- wherever you go, it’s like getting into a speakeasy. At least, that’s how I feel right now.