Photo: Jess Hurd

Friday, 16 January 2004 Here’s what GR’s very own John Sinha had to make of his first few days in Mumbai:

Arrived in noisy, smelly, dusty, smokey and crowded Bombay early Sunday morning. The hotels have filled up fast, since there is a major trade exhibition going on at the same time.

The WSF organisers are expecting about 100,000+ delegates (about 20,000 overseas and the rest from India) from outside Bombay. I am lucky to get an overpriced hotel (about $35 per night) overlooking a vast shanty town, inhabited by desperately poor people, and their buffaloes and cows, beside the main highway out of town. The only consoling fact about it is that it happens to be about two stops on the commuter railway down from the main campus where the forums and meetings will take place. For a London commuter like myself Bombay rail travel is something to be experienced and never repeated: almost any attempt to board a train is like trying to penetrate a rugby scrum; and the trains have no doors so people are hanging out the carriages as the broad-gauge train rattles along.

I get the impression that the event is well organised with hundreds of volunteers turning up throughout the week getting briefed by teams of organisers, and split it various working groups dealing with facilities, reception, catering, translation and so on.

I have been going to the NESCO all week, a complex of facory buildings set in set in a leafy industrial park. A battalion of students from the prestigious St. Francis Xavier’s College seem to form the backbone of the organisational effort; there is also a group of French/Tunisian IT boffins from Nomad setting up some of the computer networks at the centre and some Indymedia people from the States too; Indian IT hackers setting up the computers at the media centre; artists painting giant murals; interpretors and translators from the Babels organisation preparing for the arduous week ahead.

There is an air of excitement and anticipation amongst the activists both indian and foreign as the global anticapitalist converges on Bombay. I ended up voluteering to test the radio sets which will be used in the multiple similtaneous translations (the main working language being English). I saw the same at the International Youth Camp, the facilties they provided are much better than at Porto Alegre, the tents are made there from stick and bamboo frames lashed together with rope and covered with jute sacking material, the ceilings are high, they are even provided with strip lights and overhead electric fans! They look much better than homes of the shanti town dwellers.

Today I was at the opening ceremony, the event kicked-off with sufistic Pakistani rock band, Junoon who had a guest accompanyment of Bhangra style Indian drummers. I only stayed long enough to here Jeremy Corbyn and Arhundati Roy speak.

John Sinha