Mumbai - Shopping, British, and Pirates - oh my!

An old British clubhouse next to the sea.
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We spent a good portion of today shopping.  I found some nice lightweight skirts, plus had the amusement of watching my friend negotiate in Hindi over the price.  The general market area has tons of venders, though the booths are fairly similar.  Her driver took us around town to visit different stores.

The abundance of surplus labor takes a bit of getting used to.  Because of the need for jobs it is more common for people in a middle to high caste to have servants, cooks, and drivers.  If a task can be done by either a machine or manual labor, a person usually gets the task.  Earlier today I watched a man cutting a huge grass area using a pair of shears.  It was also a little bizarre, their are jobs where people take the ticket for you in a parking garage and give it to you, put your $ in a vending machine and give you a candy bar, and 3 people were in the movie theater helping to direct you to your seat.

A pic from inside the club area
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That night I went with Pri to a family functions - a bunch of her cousins were getting together for dinner.  We went to the club in which they are members.  It is a fairly old building built by the british.  It wasn't until Indian independence when Indians were allowed in.  It was a beautiful building near the ocean with a HUGE swimming pool.  After some delicious Indian food, we met up with Pri's friends again to see Pirates of the Caribbean (English).  The film was sold out, but luckily Pri's mom had the number of a black market ticket man who sells and delivers tixs - again, I guess this is pretty typical.

A View from the car
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After the movie we came back to her parent's place and all hung out for a bit.  When it was time for bed, I put on some cartoons in Hindi, and gradually fell asleep.