Tuesday, March 12: Last Day in Mumbai

Today's schedule resembled yesterday's but with two different institutions. In the morning, we visited Tata Institute of Social Sciences. Right away, the campus felt familiar to what we recognize as a university. We walked onto a shady campus with a fruit-tree-lined pathway. Parents sat on benches with their children, waiting for their admissions interviews. Because we arrived early, our guide comandeered three students walking by into giving us a tour.

Master's students (and a stray dog) give us a tour of TISS.

TISS, as it's called, is a "deemed" university, meaning it has government funding for faculty salaries but is being encouraged to generate more of its own revenue. Their focus is on social work, psychology, and urban development. One student we talked to, for instance, was writing her thesis on the effects of residential squatters in urban areas. Several of the faculty members there had traveled to the U.S. on Fulbrights and came to greet us. It's heartening to hear how transformative the experience was for them and how much they valued their time in the U.S.

On the way to our second university, the bus broke down. We divided up into several taxis and reconvened at Indian Institute of Technology Bombay. The IITs were set up by the federal government to spur research in science and engineering. The one in Bombay is particularly prestigious with several companies spun off from student and faculty research. We got a tour of a makerspace where students had created drones out of bamboo. I noticed that unlike the other universities, this one had a predominantly male student body.

Our delegation met with university leaders in a grand conference room.

For as modern and high-tech as IIT is, cows still walk through campus.

Because of the long distances and traffic today, the bus returned us to the hotel around 6:30 pm, and we had the evening off. Most everyone else planned to relax at the hotel bar, but one fellow Fulbrighter told me he was going to go to the historic center to see the colonial monuments. It was going to take awhile to get there, and an early bedtime sounded good, but I knew I had to seize the chance for sightseeing.

We took an Uber to the Colaba neighborhood. Maybe it was because we were passengers at street level rather than on the bus that the roads seemed so treacherous. Jay and I ate dinner at a white-tablecloth restaurant. After so many buffet meals, the appearance of a menu momentarily paralyzed us. It was close to 10:00 pm when we walked to see the sights but the air was still warm and the street still bustling. No foreign tourists that we could see. We visited the Gateway erected for King George and Queen Victoria that served as the final point of exit of the British after independence and next to it the Taj Hotel whose lobby is filled with photos of famous guests.

Jay in front of the Gateway.

The Taj hotel's opulent facade exemplifies some of the stunning architecture downtown.