The Face of Bombay

Much as any big city in the States, billboards are everywhere in this city. Also not unlike the States, billboards marketing clothing, telecommunications, car manufacturers, big business are the most visible. The billboards are very Western in nature, at least 99% in English and all feature people with light skin.

The same holds true for the advertising on television. One advertisement in particular stands out. It is for a clinic called Kaya that in one month will lighten your skin and is one of the few ads that is not in English. The irony, or maybe not so ironic, is that the shows during which I see the Kaya clinic advertised are all American: Friends, The Wonder Years, ER, The OC, and The Ghost Whisperer to name just a few.

Riding back and forth to the center every day, the contrast between these “perfect” faces that are being sold above the streets and the faces of the people living and working on the streets is night and day. The Western image of prosperity seems to be what India wants to promote, but the faces of Bombay we’ve seen for the last four days have been dark and represent different levels of poor. There are those who maintain themselves as best as possible and most likely have a roof over their heads and some sort of employment. Then there are the ones we see most often on our way back to the hotel who somehow manage to sleep near the street with the most insane traffic in the world flying by them. There are the children in their neat clean school uniforms who walk in no less than pairs or with a parent. Then there are the small children who are wearing nothing and relieving themselves on the sidewalk. I can’t imagine any of them are too concerned about which car they should own or the fact that they can buy Shakira’s t-shirts made by Levis.

Though few seem to pay attention to the traffic, I have to wonder if they even notice the fat American and the skinny Spaniard in the comparatively fancy Toyota Corolla with a driver complete with white jacket and pants go by. Do they notice the big Fidelity Mutual billboard that was put in their neighborhood because business people are going that way? My guess is they don’t. They are too busy trying to survive. In that struggle to survive, they are living. They are not looking to be what others think they should be. They are looking to get by one day at a time.

When you think about it, they may be doing more living than most of us. How much living do we do when we try to fit into what we presume is supposed to be the perfect image? How much living do we do when beating a deadline by missing a school play is acceptable? How much of ourselves do we lose in the struggle to be perfect?