Today was my first full day in Mumbai and I must say the city really exceeded my expectations. I will continue to reflect on Mumbai and will write a longer blog post on that topic later, but what I'll say now is that Mumbai is a great walking city with beautiful colonial era architecture (see here; scroll down). The leafy streets provide welcome shade, and this, mixed with the cool sea breeze, made the climate very pleasant (though I understand the summer can be quite hot and humid.) Another interesting fact is that there are no tuk-tuks, which apparently are not allowed in the city center. To my nose, the air is much cleaner in center city Mumbai compared to center city Bangalore, and I suspect the absence of tuk-tuks has a lot to do with it. When I release my working paper on air pollution in Indian cities later this year, I will check to see which downtown has lower air pollution.
Finally, I am gearing up for a free show tonight at India Gate, featuring Devaki Pandit and Niladri Kumar's Sitar Funk. After watching this YouTube video I am really looking forward to the show! In my next post, I'll have more to say about my India exploits.