Expats who want to be Mumbaikars

Five minutes into a chat with 22-year-old Arthor Danchest, it would be correct to assume he wouldn’t have googled the term ‘Expat clubs+Mumbai’ before coming to the city. He has a different style when he wants to belong.   

A few days after he arrived last year, he bought copies of Harry Potter Aur Rahasyamayi Tehkhana and The Alchemist in Hindi. This, insists Danchest, is the best way to learn Hindi in Mumbai. Pick up the Hindi translation of a book you know inside out — so you know exactly what you’re reading — and focus on the language. “To see Mumbai like it is, an expat has to do something as quirky,” he grins. This seems to be the new expat way to live Mumbai: to know where the buzz is, gear up to know the city in a way only few dare to.

Three types of expats
Danchest works at a major agricultural company and thinks it isn’t enough to make money and party well. So, he gave Mumbai its first internet radio in January, and says this is his way of getting to know the city he’s made home. “There are three kinds of expats in Mumbai: The Four Seasons sort who don’t want to see the filth on the streets that’s just as real; the ‘give me all the filth’ Goa sort; and then there are those like me who want to live Mumbai differently, so that it opens up to you.”

UK citizen Conrad Egbert, group editor at ITP Publishing Group, chose to settle in Mumbai two months ago and has already come up with a term for something he doesn’t want to be known as — “an expat p***k,” he quips, raising his eyebrows meaningfully.  “I worked in Dubai for five years and couldn’t learn Arabic because of how guarded the culture was. I don’t want that to happen in Mumbai.”

Most expats get busy hunting down, say, the most happening club in the city to do what they do back home anyway, but Danchest is on another quest: to track down this elusive idliwallah who appears somewhere in Bandra and sells the “best idlis ever tasted by man”. His source is a bunch of Bandra kids he spoke to for his radio show. “This is the only way we can call it home and see where the city is actually going in the next few years.”

So, where exactly is it going?

In opposite directions simultaneously, if improvisational theatre artiste Adam Dow is to be believed. And he doesn’t mean that in a bad way.

Last year, Dow had almost given up on the idea of starting improvisational comedy workshops here. Two friends who began teaching Lindy Hop didn’t quite make it and left the city. However, Dow went ahead, and it has paid off well. “On the one hand, Mumbai is eager to explore newer forms of dance and entertainment.

But, at times, I see the city changing for the worse when it comes to culture itself.” Art and culture, believes Dow, are contained in their own little bubble. If one can shell out big money to watch a great gig at an even better venue, you’re in on the ‘it’ scene. “There’s an idea here that art must be kept exclusive — not something easily thrown open to people,” he explains.

Mumbai gives her a high
Anja Dunkel first came to Mumbai as an intern in 2007 and went back home. But back in Germany, she couldn’t resist the pull of Mumbai. So she packed her bags and moved — to Bandra. She now works as a project assistant at Max Mueller Bhavan.

Dunkel now agrees with everyone who told her that you can either love, or hate this city — there’s little in between. Her decision to come back and work in Mumbai was quite sudden. Dunkel found that Germany didn’t offer the sort of jobs she dreamt of. “There’s ample project-based work for freelancers, but I wanted something permanent.”

She looked back at her stint in Mumbai and realised it was the only city where she felt “something was happening all the time”. She says, “Perhaps it the different culture and pace of the city that gives some of us such a high.” Most westerners find the cultural shift too difficult. But I loved every minute of those early days when I struggled to find a footing here.”