Elephanta Island

A week had passed since I had applied for a new passport, so I went to the US Consulate to pick it up. Unfortunately, it wasn’t ready. I had also been thinking about moving to a better hotel, but Bentley’s didn’t have any rooms available. Although I bumped into Gabriela on the street, which did cause me to smile, the heat and the crowded city streets, together with the aforementioned bureaucratic setbacks, had conspired to put me in a foul mood. So I went down to the Gateway of India and got on one of the ferry boats, thinking I would snap some pictures of the harbor.

There were mostly Indian tourists on the boat. One couple was obviously on their honeymoon. I asked them as much in Hindi. They were. This prompted a flurry of questions from other passengers, which I answered briefly, and resumed my MP3 listening, on general shuffle of the entire collection. Earphones are a great do-no-disturb sign.

The water, the motion and the cool breeze in due course improved my mood immeasurably. After about an hour, we arrived at Elephanta Island. I immediately bought a hat for to shade against the blazing sun on my bare head, and laughed at myself in this ridiculous tourist regalia.

After shaking off the usual tourist hustlers, I hit one of the first restaurants, where I proceeded to wolf down a thali, which for the most part was pretty standard (rice, two chapattis, a single papad, dal, chick peas) but also featured a delicious chutney and a fiery-hot potato curry. Sated, I walked up the stone stairs before me. The area was lined with relatively quiet hawkers, pushing the usual trinkets. In the heat, so far, I figured that Elephanta Island was just the stairs, which at this point seemed interminable. But when I got to the top, there were cute little monkeys, a few of which I took the time to photograph, and more interestingly, temples with Shiva-related deities hewn into caves. I immediately thought of Petra, in Jordan.

Wikipedia offers the following synopsis:

Elephanta Island (also called Gharapuri Island or place of caves) is one of a number of islands in Mumbai Harbour, east of Mumbai, India. This island is a popular tourist destination for a day trip because of the island's cave temples, the Elephanta Caves, that have been carved out of rock.

Known in ancient times as Gharapuri, the present name Elephanta, was given by 17th century Portuguese explorers, after seeing a monolithic sculpture of an elephant head found here near the entrance. This culpture has since been moved to the Victoria and Albert Museum
(aka Dr Bhau Daji lad Museum) in Mumbai.

The island has an area of 16 km² (6 sq miles). It is located at approximately 18.95° N 72.93° E. The area comes under the jurisdiction of the Raigad district in Maharashtra State.

The island is thickly wooded with palm, mango and tamarind trees. The island has a population of about 1,200 involved in growing rice, fishing, and repairing boats. It was once the capital of a powerful local kingdom.

On the boat ride over, I had wasted some of my thinking time pointlessly worrying about the future. How foolish of me. Life is today. When an answer isn’t apparent, the advice I always give to others, and would do well to heed myself, is to just be patient. The answer comes on its own at the right time.

On the way back down the stone stairs, I noticed a T shirt at one of the hawker stalls: There is Life Beyond the Dot Com. How eminently fitting.