GANESHA zagged left and hit the floor with a dull plastic plop. A moment earlier the driver of the Uber, a smokily intense young man, had zigged the steering wheel to the right to avoid colliding with one or more of the myriad moving vehicles that loomed too close to our car for comfort.
The driver, alarmed, perhaps embarrassed, stabbed his left arm towards the floor, retrieved the small figurine, put it back on its place — a Prestik blob in the centre of the top of the dashboard - and pushed downward with a force the deity might not have appreciated. And all, impressively, without swerving into the path of the myriad.
A few kilometres onward, as we waited in the queue to the Bandra-Worli Sea Link Bridge toll booths, the driver glanced to his right and saw, within his reach, a bush adorned with bright yellow flowers. He lowered his window, plucked a bloom, and laid it carefully next to Ganesha.
“For the god,” he said. It was difficult to know whether the gesture was apology or appeasement. And so to the magnificent 5.6-kilometre bridge itself:
ONCE over the bridge and into Bandra, where Bollywood used to live, I had to search out, on foot, the café I had set as my destination. It seems to be part of the Subko way to hide their outlets in the most unlikely nooks. At least, while I was trying to find where I wanted to go, I had a view:
IN India, there is always cricket everywhere. This is the view from the rooftop of our hotel on Marine Drive. To the left are the lights of Wankhede Stadium, where preparations were ongoing for the start of the Indian Premier League in three days' time:
OUR route home passed through Dar es Salaam. There really is nothing like an African sky, even through an airport window:
CAPE Town at last! There are many ways to illustrate the wonderful fact of being here. Here's one:
© 2026 Telford Vice. Words and photographs.