Snot: The Canary in Bombay’s Coal Mine

“Mumbai is such a foul city that frequent nose-picking has become compulsory.”

So begins Dilip Radte’s lengthy commentary and first-finger account on the Op-Ed page of yesterday’s Hindustan Times (Mumbai Edition). His point is that dust, grime, and foul air have reached a point where they clog the nose. In truth, at the end of every Mumbai day, I find myself blowing black-shit from my schnoz, just as one does in any other North Indian city, or in New York for that matter.

Radte also puts the prissy and well-mannered – who would turn up their nose at nose-picking – in their place: “The elitist’s only advantage over other Mumbaikars is that they don’t have to pick their noses in public.”

Eating “on the Street”

 

I hear a lot of advice given about precautions one should take when visiting India. Most of that seems directed at protecting one from what Indians would call “loose motions.” It almost always involves abstinence, a concept that will never be incorporated into my behavioral vocabulary.

One piece of advice almost universally offered is this: don’t eat food on the streets.