‘Full on’ in Mumbai, Goa and Kochi

Pepe Escobar of Asia Times in Full power on theArabian Sea has an interesting and entertaining take on thecurrent Indian socio-political.

He uses Mumbai, Goa and Kochi as’representative’ of India.The article skims through a lot of issues and offers little in terms of a new perspectivebut it is full of fascinating historical and anthropological tit bits on thesecoastal cities. Things like:

That more people live in Mumbai that the whole of Australia.
That the name Bombaycomes from Bom Bahia (‘good bay’ in Portuguese) and I though it was an anglicizedpronunciation of Mumba, the goddess worshipped by the fishing villages of thatarea.
The Tata family were former opium concessionaires.
Chinese Admiral Zheng was trading with India- long before Vasco da Gamma ‘discovered’ Indiawith the help of a ‘Moor from Gujarat’.
That 34% of the 21.7 billion dollars sent back by migrant Indians comes fromMalayaleese of Kerala.