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Are You an Expat Moving to Mumbai? Five Things No One Will Ever Tell You
So you are moving to Mumbai and think you are prepared for the crowds, the poverty, the excitement of it all. You have scoured the Internet, read every guide book, and have adjectives like “chaotic” or “fascinating” dancing in your head. But what will it really be like? What don’t the guidebooks tell you? The light switches are upside down and you have to turn on the water to heat it before you can shower. Squeeze mops are considered to be too high-tech for Indian cleaning ladies – they prefer to squat and wash the floor by hand. Mothballs make good vermin repellants in the shower drain. Put cork dots on the back of your pictures and paintings before hanging them on the wall to avoid the dampness ruining your art works during monsoon. Those are some useful little things to know before you relocate. Here are five big things that no one tells you before you arrive: Indians love to negotiate or argue. It can seem rude or in-your-face at first, but you do get used to it. Indians love to fully discuss the pros and cons of anything before taking action. You may request a white cabinet with little feet, and the carpenter will try to talk you into brown with no feet. He’s not being insubordinate. He just wants to be sure you have considered all your options before he goes to the effort of performing the work you are paying him to do. As an example, I once volunteered to serve on the Race Committee for my Indian sailing club and various contestants tried to persuade me that the course I set should be altered because it was too hard to (select your option) take the marks to starboard - or port. There were proponents for each method of mark-rounding. My point is, in the West, the Race Committee sets up the race course and no one would dream of questioning it. Lack of Literacy will test your patience. You may know that the literacy rate in India is very low, but what no one tells you is how that will affect you every single day. Your household staff – those people who make life bearable – will most likely be illiterate in any language. This means that every instruction will have to be verbal. No more leaving a note for the cleaning lady saying, “Please vacuum the closets today”. No sticky on the back door for the sprinkler man to tell him which head needs replacing. In the west, you assume that anyone helping you can read. That is not true in India. Here, every instruction will have to be made verbally, with some charades on your part, to get across what you want. It is exhausting. And if you get frustrated and yell, the staff will quit on the spot. I’m just saying….patience is a virtue, and one that you will really develop living here. Bills are frequently settled in cash. Really. The bank’s online bill-pay systems don’t actually function here, but you can request almost anyone send a runner to your office to either deliver cash or take it to pay, say, the mobile bill. I’m personally working with my banker on the concept of the “wire transfer” because I’m tired of loading up a suitcase with cash and hand-carrying it across the street to deposit into the bank accounts of people I’m trying to pay. India is a high-decibel country. Indians do everything with gusto. Also with drums, flutes, and fireworks, at all hours of the day or night. The only quiet hours you can really count on are between 1 and 5 AM. The loud, public celebrations of all kinds of things are a part of the culture and not something anyone warns you about. It is only the morning after a sleepless night that you find out yesterday was So-and-So’s birthday - and someone who didn’t need to be at work today felt like celebrating. The Indian Supreme Court did rule in 2005 that amplified noise must be limited to 40 decibels. Amplifiers in public places are supposed to be shut off at ten each night. Good luck enforcing that. You might want to pack earplugs. The roads are incredibly hazardous. Yes, you may have read about the cows that occasionally snarl traffic. I’m not counting them. The drivers in India are terrible compared to those of Caracas, Beijing, Jakarta, and New York, based on my personal experience. Buses and motorcycles routinely run red lights. Drivers swerve erratically and honk incessantly. Lanes are a theoretical concept here. When traffic gets backed up in one direction, cars will spontaneously start driving counter-flow in the oncoming lanes. Many vehicles do not use their lights at night, in the mistaken belief that not using headlights saves gasoline. The American State Department website on India states that in the case of accident, “the vehicle and its occupants are at risk of being attacked by passersby. Such attacks pose significant risk of injury or death to the vehicle's occupants or at least of incineration of the vehicle.” Let’s review that one more time. The official US recommendation is to leave the scene of a car accident, on foot, immediately, and let your driver deal with it, so that you are not burned alive. I thought it was worth mentioning. In spite of these challenges, the guidebooks don’t lie. Mumbai is a fascinating, exciting, high-energy place. It just helps to know, in advance, some of the particular oddities you will inevitably run into. Tip: quinine is malaria preventer. Keep your gin and tonic handy! Full details are provided in the Mini Namaskar Mumbai guide, the book for expats by expats! More for expat planning to move to Mumbai Moving to Mumbai: Getting Here, Getting In, Getting Organized - Expat Info More on Chillibreeze.comRelated links Roti Kapda Aur Makaan: Things You Should Know Before Moving to Mumbai
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