Manuscript Monday: Crashing the Cricket Club

Towards the end of my first week in Mumbai, I had a wild day that encompassed animal slaughter, sitting at the feet of an elderly guru, and lunching at the members-only Cricket Club of India. I wrote a post about the first two parts of this day while on the road last year, which you can read here.

Today's Manuscript Monday is about the third part, the Cricket Club lunch. A man at the guru's house spontaneously invited my friend Erin and me to join him there. I had never expected to find myself there, so I looked a mess. I was also woefully sleep-deprived because male members of the hotel staff continued to open my door every couple nights and startle me awake. (I suspected word had gone around that there was a naked girl sleeping in room 168, but I made sure to be fully clothed every night after the first invasion.) Needless to say, I was not at my finest in this fine-dining establishment.


Mumbai is truly unpredictable. One hour, I’m slogging through innards in an alley. The next, I’m sitting in a penthouse apartment listening to a guru spell out the secrets of the universe. And the next, I found myself in the members-only bar of the exceedingly posh Cricket Club of India, sipping Foster’s beer while an Indian man from Canada tried his damnedest to pick up my friend under the guise of spiritual communion.

Not just the swankiest digs I’d seen in India, the Cricket Club was fancier than any place I hang out in America. It had chandeliers, white linen tablecloths, classical music and bow-tied waiters. If the Cricket Club was a shining relic of British influence, then I was a Dickensian street urchin who’d snuck in the back door for a crust of bread. This impression was heightened by my wardrobe: wrinkled backpacker khakis, a sweat-soaked T-shirt from Target that insisted on bunching under my armpits, and a tote bag with kittens on it.

Erin looked her usual brand of Indo-California chic in a green-flowered cotton tunic blouse and matching cotton pants. Green glass bangles slid up and down her wrists as she gestured, clinking like tiny champagne toasts.

Not even the cool atmosphere of affluence could stop the Mumbai heat. I blotted my perspiring forehead with wadded up tissues as I listened to the conversation. It suddenly occurred to me that I’d probably never be at this private club again. This urchin was going to have a look around.

I excused myself to use the restroom, and then walked out to the empty cricket green. I stared up at the stadium seating and the oval of blue sky beyond, hazy with urban pollution. I hadn’t seen this much open, unoccupied space since I left America. The vastness was comforting.

I walked back onto the patio and stood outside the glass doors to the dining room, watching wealthy Indian families sitting down for lunch service. I was amazed to see that nearly everyone wore blue jeans, sneakers and silk-screened T-shirts. This basic Western uniform was the height of fashion in Mumbai, even though denim is uncomfortably heavy in the subcontinental summer. Every beggar woman squatting on the sidewalk wore a silk sari, but India’s elite sported jeans and T-shirts.

Was it possible that my own backpacker wardrobe might look fashionable in this context? I entered the pristine white-tiled bathroom and examined my perspiration-soaked attire in the mirror. Yeah, not likely.

I wiped my face with a paper towel and made a futile attempt to arrange my sweat-drenched bangs across my forehead, where they hung like limp seaweed. I was beginning to realize why, in a city of 13.6 million people, I’d never seen one woman with bangs.

I found Erin and our host seated with his friend at a table in the dining room. Our host was in the middle of an anecdote about a Canadian friend who’d had trouble with strange men walking into her hotel room during her first visit to India.

I froze with my beer glass halfway to my lips. Was this an actual phenomenon in India? I said nothing about my own hotel intruders, but listened attentively.

“Well, the trouble was, she was sleeping naked in her room!” Our host laughed and the others joined in. “Come on,” he said, “this is India! Who would sleep naked here?”

I smiled nervously and began twisting the napkin in my lap into improvised origami.

We ordered a slew of dishes from the menu, which offered Indian Chinese food, a cuisine that had completely escaped my awareness until that moment. When it arrived, the food was very much like American Chinese food — sautéed greens, Schezhuan eggplant — with the particularly Indian additions of cauliflower and a hint of curry.

As we ate, our host directed his attention towards Erin. He was a smooth talker and somehow found a way to pepper the dominant topic of conversation — their shared guru — with allusions towards his financial prowess and sexual experience, relative to Indian males who had never lived in the west. The word “tantra” was uttered, along with several expressions of sympathy for how lonely she must be as a Westerner living overseas. Erin politely and gently guided the conversation back to more neutral topics until our host grew bored and turned to me.

“So, what do you want from India?” he asked.

I told him I came here with no plans, except to see the country and do some meditation. Just like the man I met in the airport, he rolled his eyes and announced that I should go to Goa instead.

“Enjoy yourself!” he said. He opened his wallet and began removing business cards for restaurants and guesthouses on the beaches of Goa. He spoke like a travel agent, “You can rent a scooter in Candolim, and you have to dine at the Villa Blanche Garden Bakery and Café.”

He slid the cards across the table towards me. I tried to tell him I didn’t really plan on going to Goa, but he acted as if it was a done deal. “Be careful of AIDS and drugs,” he told me with a stern look. “Both are rampant in Goa.”

“You’ll take a lover, of course,” he said, waving his hand in the air. I shot Erin a quizzical expression. She shrugged and grinned back at me. “Stay away from Russians and Israelis,” he said. “They are too rough. And Russians can’t speak English anyway.”

He studied my sweating face intently. “You would do well with an Italian,” he said thoughtfully. “Yes! Find an Italian! Have fun with him, but don’t expect too much.”

I twisted my napkin into a tiny ball. Take a lover? Please! I may not know why I’d been called to India, but I was pretty sure it wasn’t to date. For six months, I’d only packed one plain bra and not a single dress or bit of make-up. I’d had no luck with love in America and I sure as hell wasn’t looking for more in India.

I was here to feed orphans or meditate on a mountaintop, or something noble like that. All I needed now was a clear sign, which would be a lot easier to hear if everyone I met didn’t keep telling me to go to Goa.

I was ready for a God-ordained mission and all anyone said was, “Relax! Enjoy!” Even the guru had said we should be comfortable while meditating and have a beer if we wanted. I watched our host fill my glass with the last of the Foster’s and signal the waiter for more.

We finished our meal with custard-apple ice cream. The men wanted to linger at the club, but we excused ourselves and took a cab back to Erin’s flat. She was leaving the next day for Malaysia, on a two-week reporting assignment for a business travel magazine. I was more than a bit nervous to part with the only friend I had in India, but she’d promised to set me on the right path with one of her professional tarot readings before she left. We were bound to discover my calling that way. Full up on Chinese food and flattery, it was time to get serious.