India diary, day 7: Mobiles in Mumbai

Saturday 10 February - Mumbai

Should you ever find yourself driving in downtown Mumbai, here's how to make a right-hand turn. Wait until there is a gap in the traffic (say, about the size of a small car) and nose out into it so you are heading into oncoming traffic on the wrong side of the road.

Special Report: Inside India

In February silicon.com's Steve Ranger visited the Indian tech hotspots of Bangalore, Mumbai, Pune and Hyderabad to explore the exploding Indian offshore tech and BPO industry. Keep up with his daily diaries here.

♦ India diary, day 1: Cyberbad on Sunday
♦ India diary, day 2: Emergency calls and rural life
♦ India diary, day 3: Inside the outsourcing campus
♦ India diary, day 4: Hyderabad's tech park
♦ India diary, day 5: Margaritas to Mumbai
♦ India diary, day 6: Prime Minister's question time
♦ India diary, day 7: Mobiles in Mumbai
♦ India diary, day 8: Pune or bust
♦ India diary, day 9: An auto-rickshaw ride and a catwalk show
♦ India diary, day 10: Lost in Pune
♦ India diary, day 11: I heart Bangalore
♦ India diary, day 12: Searching for the next big thing
♦ India diary, day 13: Thirsty in Bangalore

Sit there ignoring the horns of the other cars until you somehow nudge into the lane of traffic you actually want to be in. Repeat as necessary.

The strange thing is... this actually works. Nobody gets irate, nobody shouts and, like some complicated jigsaw or a dance where I don't understand the rules, everyone pretty much seems to get to where they need to be.

I've decided to brave the traffic and head into downtown Mumbai for a look around. Because it's a Saturday it's only going to take about an hour to get into the centre of town instead of the hour and a half it takes on a weekday.

Actually, my driver is pretty good. And after about 10 minutes of driving he puts his glasses on, which makes me feel a lot better. But after another five minutes he puts on his seat belt, which makes me feel a lot worse, especially when I realise there isn't one in the back for me.

The outskirts of Mumbai are grey, dirty, grimy. Some of the apartment blocks look like they've been in a fire but in fact they've been blackened by fumes.

I pass a roadside stand which is selling motorcycle crash helmets. As a business plan this must be up there with selling shoes to fish because I haven't seen anyone on a bike bothering to wearing one. Perhaps the vendor is hoping to spark a new fashion.

There was a story in the paper yesterday about a very unusual crime - a car-jacking in Mumbai. In this town of regular gridlock it must have been the slowest getaway of all time.

As we near the south of town colours begin to break in. I see more familiar chain stores appearing - and then finally I arrive at Marine Drive which looks out over the Arabian Sea. I walk down to probably the most famous sight in town, the Gateway of India, and mingle with the families enjoying the sun taking photos on cameraphones.

Much of the Victorian architecture in Mumbai is being rapidly consumed by the pollution. I take a walk up to the grand central station. Stalls along the way sell all the reading matter a visiting executive might need - books of management tips and Six Sigma, Dan Brown thrillers and Penthouse Letters. Other stalls sell fake branded watches and sunglasses, and rapidly pirated copies of Windows Vista.

What's very obvious is how important mobile phones have become. Billboard ads encourage people to buy cinema tickets by SMS or text their Valentine's Day messages to newspapers.

Most billboards don't mention websites, just numbers you can text to get more information. You can even text to find out what the traffic conditions are like. But in Mumbai I can't imagine that the message you get back would ever read anything other than 'terrible'.

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