Mumbai – At least part of it

I spent a week in Mumbai to attend the Sankalp Annual Summit – which, according to their website, is the largest social enterprise focused gathering in the world. The conference, like any other, was full of meetings, workshops, and networking. For someone new to the space, it was great to be in the room with so many people that have careers you envy and entrepreneurs who are doing incredibly inspiring work.

As far as exploring go, most of my time was spent in a 5 Star hotel (quite ironic considering the focus of the conference) but I did get out a bit. The Mumbai I saw though was incredibly different than what I’ve come to know as India. Tall building, ritzy roof top bars, brand new bridges, sidewalks, Starbucks, and even a KALE salad. Of course it wasn’t all wonderful; Traffic is insane, the city is huge (nearly 3 times the size of NYC), you feel the pollution all over your body, and of obviously the nice things mentioned above are only in certain neighborhoods. We were able to take a 1 hr drive through the city late at night and it was amazing to see the diversity throughout the city: overwhelming me with it’s vastness. Will definitely have to go back to discover more – especially since I basically took zero photos.

Indian Cultural “Fact” – Mumbai Addition: HORNS. Indian drivers love them. And non drivers don’t seem to notice them. A horn is used as a turning, passing, slowing signal, as well as used to communicate to the other driver to hurry up, get out of the way, or just simply say hi. Sometimes I swear they are just hitting the horn out of habit. Their love of horns even goes so far that their cars literally ask for it. Photo was snapped in Mumbai as proof.