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I didn’t want to get a maid when I first moved to Mumbai. It seemed such a bother – calling and interviewing candidates -- and I don’t mind cleaning and cooking, especially since I’d be living on my own here. It would be a pleasure to walk to the market, buy a few vegetables every day, make a simple curry.

 

“I don’t need a maid,” I told Freny, the ASB staff member who was helping the new teachers settle in. She nodded an Indian nod, whether in agreement or disagreement, I wasn’t sure.

 

My first task was to find a market close to my apartment where I could buy some food and cleaning supplies. Someone had mentioned the Phoenix Mall but a quick Google search informed me that there was a closer store, a supermarket, just down the street from my building, and so I set off for my first walk in Mumbai.

 

Not two minutes later, it became clear to me that the store Google had told me about was closed. Although the plate-glass windows were plastered with ads for dish soap and biscuits, closer inspection revealed them to be peeling and covered with dust, and the sidewalk near the front entrance was occupied by squatting men and stray dogs. I dared not make eye contact with either and kept walking as if I knew where I was going.

 

And I sort of did. When people had talked about the mall, they had waved their hands in the general direction I was walking. Surely I would come to it soon.

 

But first, apparently, I had to walk for three-quarters of an hour on streets that bore no resemblance to the Incredible India that had lured me here. There were no stalls piled high with colorful spices and vegetables. There were no bright fabrics adorning beautiful women. There were no smiling children poking their heads out from curtained windows. There were only men and there was only dirt and traffic. Everything – the steel beams the men were pounding, the tires stacked on the sidewalks, the gravel being shoveled onto trucks – was a dull gray cast in dust. Cars and buses honked and left me in a plume of exhaust. When I almost stepped on a dead rat being pecked at by a crow, I wondered if perhaps I might have been just a tad hasty in deciding to teach in Mumbai.

 

I dared not glance up after that, but when I did I saw before me, rising from the grit like Oz, a modern, glass-enclosed building: Phoenix Market City. There was just one more hurdle:  a wide road to cross. I would soon know this road as LBS Marg, one of the busiest thoroughfares in Mumbai, but for now I looked left, then-- oops, I looked right, then left. A traffic light? A cross walk? All I saw was a river of traffic bearing down on me.

 

I eventually crossed that road. I made it to the mall. I managed the grocery cart and the check-out system. I carried my bags, a mop handle sticking awkwardly out of one, and crossed the road again, this time with the help of a giggling group of girls. But as soon as I walked into my apartment, a good three hours after I left, I put my bags on the kitchen counter and called Freny. “About that household help” I said. I could only imagine her nod.

 

I can now admit that I happily employ a maid. Lesson learned. But that’s not really where the story ends. One of the first conversations I had with her, besides what kind of food I liked and how I wanted my bed made, was how to get to the mall.

 

“Walk the church way,” she said, surprised that I didn’t know about it.

 

She elaborated: a tree-lined street where no traffic was allowed; an open courtyard with a Catholic church at the top of a hill. Step through a red gate on the left, which leads you into a lane. Quiet houses. Window boxes. The mall will be directly across the street.

 

The next time I needed the diversion of a mall, I followed my maid’s instructions. The courtyard and lane were hushed and clean. The church, calm, swept, whitewashed. I stepped through the red gate and admired the flowers on the balconies. When I got to LBS Marg, I was prepared. I looked right this time, then left. Somehow the street seemed less formidable. Could it be that just a week or two of experience had boosted my confidence? I thought so at the time, giving myself credit for being a quick learner.

 

But I’ve been in this city for a few months now. I ride in rickshaws or taxis on a daily basis. I walk regularly. I’ve joined the crowded dance of pedestrians and buses, trucks and rickshaws, taxis and bicycles, scooters and handcarts, book vendors, coconut vendors, banana vendors, strawberry vendors, street children, blind beggars, goats and dogs, rats and crows. It’s a dance I don’t understand. Why aren’t cars stopping at the red lights? Why is everybody honking? How do the dogs and children not get hit? How close is my rickshaw going to get to that enormous truck?

 

The more questions I have, the more I realize that my maid, in telling me to take the “church way,” wasn’t simply telling me about a nice short-cut to the mall. Instead, she was clueing me in to a basic fact of life here: that no matter where you go for your religion – whether a temple or a mosque, a gurdwara or a church, a yoga mat or a living room couch -- it most definitely helps to gather your faith before diving into a Mumbai street.