Across the Border #4

From October till January, W1555-resident Ieke was in India.

From the W1555 Buurtkrant April 2025 by Ieke

Vanvadi Waterbank

It is my birthday and I am arriving at my first destination in Mumbai. Two years ago, I spent a day and a night here and I would rather not be here. Driving on the Western Express Highway flyover at night, you look at endless skyscrapers before arriving in the old city area in the south. It feels like a dystopian futuristic sci-fi movie. I look at the windows in the towering buildings with the lights on, searching for the human in this great mass of glass and concrete.

With full conviction drenched in sweat, I practise walking the streets in Chembur as a walker. It is a matter of joining a local when I want to cross a busy street with traffic from three directions. I play theatre, imagining that I have been walking around here for years to blend in naively with the crowd. I show the inside of my palm to make the traffic stop.

It is about two hours of travelling by train from Mumbai followed by an auto-rickshaw to the Vanvadi regenerated forest. With windows and doors open in the lowest class of the train, I sit in the women's compartment. Vendors pass by and hang their retail right in front of you. Earrings, necklaces, bracelets and nose rings, all made of plastic. I exchange a few words with the woman sitting opposite me. Limited is my knowledge of Hindi, she speaks Marathi and a few words English. She hands me a home-made boli, a flat bread filled with sweet jaggery.

It is exciting on the way to the promising forest. No electricity, no internet and no phone reception for the next week or weeks. It is unclear how long I may stay there. On arrival, we walk through a wooden gate to the house of stone, beams, mud and roof tiles. Instead of walls, the living room has the greenery of the forest you can look at. For the first time, I sit on a layer of dried cow dung, with which the floor is covered. It is comfortable. I wonder if I can drink water from the well. In the kitchen, wood is burning in the chulha and a pot of water just boiled. As it turns out, electricity was connected three months ago.

I can choose between the Indian toilet or the Western one. I rather squat, it feels more natural and this way I can clean my behind better with rainwater. Despite the time of year, it rains a lot. The monsoon is not over yet. The water in the river is high and the flow from one water bank to another is an ongoing noise, which can be heard day and night. When it is dark, the electricity sometimes cuts out. We eat with kerosene lamps by our side and I sleep early because it is dark.

In the Adivasi village of Chinchwadi, I do a workshop shadow play with as many as 50 children. It is a total surprise that there are so many children. On the back of the motorbike, I arrive late and it soon gets dark. Not wanting to leave a mess, I decide to use old newspapers as material for costumes. We fold, tear and glue with homemade glue. The children are tasked with collecting litter, as more and more processed products in packaging are arriving in this village too. We have a lot of fun. Still, at the end there is a big pile of litter and the next day I see that it has been set on fire, including the plastic waste.

After Maharashtra, I travel on to West Bengal.