CHERRY CREEK FASHION — DISPATCHES FROM INDIA: Reena and Suchit Majmudar

Dispatches is a column in the magazine, taking readers behind the scenes to international destinations all around the world with well-known personalities from Denver and beyond. They share personal photos and experiences from their work trips and vacation spots. This month, Reena and Suchit Majmudar share details of their family trip to India.

_Phool Gulley_ (Flower Alley) in Dadar (Mumbai)

Name: Reena and Suchit Majmudar

Occupation: Reena Majmudar: Speech Language Pathologist

Suchit Majmudar: Co-founder, Sunday’s Spirits Ltd. and Consumer/Retail Investor and Advisor

Destination: India (Mumbai, Maharashtra; Alibag, Maharashtra; Surat, Gujarat)

When: December 2019/January 2020

Why: Reena and I are both of Indian origin - each of our sets of parents came to the US in the early 1970s and settled in the Midwest. Our families prioritized our culture, albeit in different ways. Whether speaking our native language (Gujarati); eating Indian food nightly for dinner (as opposed to American/Western food); understanding basic tenets of Hinduism (karma (the cycle of life) and ahimsa (non-violence)) or regularly traveling to India, we viewed our childhoods and adolescent years as multicultural and definitively think of ourselves as Indian-Americans.

However, the environment we have created for our daughters is decidedly more “American” than “Indian”. At their ages (Nilaya, 7 and Kinnari, 5), Reena and I had already been to India three times. We don’t eat Indian food for dinner each night and the girls know more words in Spanish than Gujarati. We have been waiting for the “perfect” time to visit India, but that wasn’t readily materializing. Long flights and layovers from Denver; a 12-hour time difference and concerns about their immunity and stamina were all realities/excuses that we utilized. But, this year, my parents were spending five months there to escape the cold Chicago winter and my sister and her family decided to go, so we made a last-minute call and went to India for winter break.

The Whole Family at Hanging Gardens in Malabar Hill (South Mumbai)

Culture and Identity

Despite growing up in not-so-diverse Indiana, Reena and I ironically had a lot of Indian friends as children. However, 30 years ago, Indian culture in America was very misunderstood and caricatured (Apu from The Simpsons or the actor Fisher Stevens in the movie Short Circuit). Today, there are many more well-known Indian names throughout American culture: Aziz Ansari (comedian, actor), Priyanka Chopra (actress), Jhumpa Lahiri (author), Satya Nadella (Microsoft CEO), Ajit Pai (FCC Chairman). Perhaps that’s why our daughters readily embrace their heritage, rather than feeling embarrassed by it (as Reena and I sometimes were).

Checking Out Spices at Lalbagh Spice Market (Mumbai)

Kashmiri Chilis at Lalbagh Spice Market (Mumbai)

Overview/Summary/Description of Trip

Overview

This trip was planned to be quite different than the way we visited India as children. We used to focus on visiting extended family; always stayed with family or friends and didn’t prioritize restaurants, cafes or urban exploration. Our trips as children used to be longer in duration (at least three weeks and sometimes up to three months) and we had more significant family ties back then (living grandparents, younger cousins, the concentration of family in a few cities, etc.).

So, we treated Mumbai (and India) like we would any other far-flung destination we would visit and explore (like Hong Kong, Seoul or Sydney):

+ Walk a lot

+ Be diligent in planning

+ Focus on specific cultural attractions, but invest time in learning and appreciation rather than “checking off boxes”

+ Explore the food scene

+ Save time to relax and unwind daily

“Tourist” Highlights

+ Visiting the Lal Bagh Spice Market. Wow - to see “custom” chutneys being produced; to taste the freshest spices like turmeric and cardamom and to see multiple varieties of fresh and dried chilies - this was a highlight to a family that loves cooking and food

+ Dabbawallas! This is an ingenious lunch delivery co-op service, providing transport for homemade lunches for hundreds of thousands of people. There’s even a Harvard Business School case on them!

+ Exploring a Dhobi Ghat. Loosely translated, this means outdoor laundromat. There are multiple ones throughout Mumbai. Think hundreds of outdoor cement “stations” where budget hotels, service businesses and others send their laundry. Interesting to see the scale, hard work, poverty and ingenuity of these communities at work

+ Taking a boat to Elephanta Caves. This was a great experience for everyone, including the kids...the boat ride from the Gateway of India, exploring sculptures in caves and being on the lookout for monkeys...worthwhile all around!

+ Learning about Mahatma Gandhi at Mani Bhavan. Mani Bhavan served as Gandhi’s Mumbai headquarters over a 17-year period (he also lived there on and off). To be in a place where he physically spent so much time and built the foundations of civil disobedience and religious unity was unforgettable

+ Hanging in the arts-oriented Kala Ghoda neighborhood was a real treat. Dense, walkable and ever-evolving, this is one of the cooler neighborhoods in Mumbai. It’s a mix of high and low, old and new and modern and traditional. Some of our favorite stops were Kulture Shop (graphic design collective), Sequel (plant-forward restaurant/cafe), Nicobar (home goods store), Rue de Liban (Lebanese restaurant), Payal Khandwala (modern women’s clothing) and Bombay Vintage (Indian restaurant; technically in Colaba, but very close to Kala Ghoda)

+ We were fortunate to stay at The Oberoi Nariman Point. Everything about the hotel was great, but what made it truly remarkable was the services of Tushna Dastur, their hands-on, down-to-earth and all-knowing concierge.

_Dhobi Ghat_ (Outdoor Laundry) in Mumbai

Family Goof Off in Malabar Hill (South Mumbai)

Health, Wellness and Food

So many of the “trends” of the last two decades related to health and wellness have their roots in South Asia: yoga, mindfulness, meditation, plant-forward eating, etc. It’s unfortunate that in South Asia, most of the population (regardless of socioeconomic status) doesn’t really follow or acknowledge these trends/activities; instead, most of the population, especially the middle class, emulates aspects of Western consumer culture that we are trying to reduce or change (disposability/convenience; fast food; mall-based shopping; etc.).

With that said, it was wonderful to experience a tiny though burgeoning set of entrepreneurs focused on preserving India’s heritage with regard to minimally-processed local food, made thoughtfully with plant-forward ingredients. India’s culture of vegetarianism goes back thousands of years, but in more recent times consuming meat in increasing quantities has become a status symbol. Sequel, although priced out of reach for the majority of Indians, was our favorite spot to see this entrepreneurial energy and to taste a modern interpretation of thousands of years of culinary history.

Family

Exploring your ethnic or cultural heritage with your extended family is truly a blessing. It’s not something that everyone is privileged to do. And of course, there are compromises on how you spend your time and what each person thinks is important, but having our girls “understand” India through their own eyes, but also with context from their parents, grandparents, aunts, and cousins was a magical, once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Hope Endowment

Visiting Hope Endowment was an inspiring, interesting and thought-provoking experience. It was also a stark reminder to look at our day-to-day problems within the context of how blessed we truly are.

Reena’s cousin, Niraj Patel, a physician from Houston TX, started this orphanage along with Molly Philip, a nurse, and some of his friends back in 2004. It is now located in a small village, about 90 minutes away from Surat, Gujarat. Hope takes care of 175 kids (pre-school through 16). They are educated (in both English and Gujarati); provided a place to live and given proper meals and medical care. Hope Endowment is also a non-denominational environment.

To see the pure happiness and excitement on the children’s faces and to meet two kids, Tejas and Mayuri (names we were going to use for our own children), whose station in life was due to nothing more certain than a roll of the dice, was a profound reminder of the role luck plays in our lives. Sure, we all may deserve what we have, but it’s hard to ignore that the gods of happenstance have repeatedly smiled at us throughout our lives.

Hope Endowment Founder Molly Philip and Suchit Majmudar (Dumda, Surat, Gujarat)

Lucky and Beyond Blessed at Hope Endowment (Dumda, Surat, Gujarat)

Sisters Experiencing Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (fka The Prince of Wales Museum of Western India) (South Mumbai)

Summary

The experience of experiencing your roots “IRL” with extended family is profound and one that I hope stays with me and my family forever. India is a study in contrasts:

(1) unfathomable wealth and heart-wrenching poverty side-by-side

(2) ingenuity and entrepreneurship at work in close proximity to bloated government bureaucracy

(3) balancing the historical societal emphasis of the “greater good” with the modern focus of individualism and self-expression

We are so grateful to be part of two great cultures and democracies: America and India. Although India has its flaws, it is notably the birthplace of many of the movements and spiritual philosophies that we are experiencing and prioritizing in our lives today, such as the concepts of karma (transmigration of the soul; “what goes around comes around”; the cycle of life; etc.) and ahimsa (non-violence, including toward oneself; what “kindness” is based upon).

I hope that this brief article inspires you to visit India. Here are two quotes about India from two great Americans:

+ “[India is] the one land that all men desire to see, and having seen once, by even a glimpse, would not give that glimpse for all the shows of all the rest of the globe combined.” - Mark Twain

+ “To other countries, I may go as a tourist, but to India, I come as a pilgrim.” - Martin Luther King, Jr.

Feel free to find me on Instagram or LinkedIn if you want to connect about India!

New Year's Eve 2019 - Auto Rickshaw Ride (Mumbai)