10 Best Things About Bombay
It's absurd, the things people try to sell you on the street all over Bombay: spare typewriter keys, single socks, your name written on a match. My favorite street vendor is the guy I've come to know as Balloonman. He spends his days near the Gateway of India, Bombay's monumental arch, hawking equally monumental, six-foot-long, phallus-shaped balloons. He'll approach passers-by with one propped against his pelvis, pounding the balloon with a fist (boing! boing!) to demonstrate its sturdiness.
"Look, sir!" he called to me one morning. "A bargain at fifty rupees!" He grinned as he beat his inflated Siva lingam.
"What possible use would I have for a penis-shaped balloon?" I asked.
"Oh, very useful, sir! Holidays, entertaining children, the whole family!"
"Anyway, it's too big," I said. "Wouldn't even fit on the plane."
He fixed me with a look and readied the final pitch. "For you, my friend?Special discount. Five rupees."
"Now you're talking!" I said, and bought two.
