As I am walking past the Gandhi statute in the city we grew up calling Bombay - Bom Bahia from the Portuguese - an Indian man smiles and asks me, as people there always do, "What country are you coming from?", writes Helen Shaw.
"Ireland," I reply. Like many others before him he looks puzzled, unsure what strange part of the globe I have picked. "In Europe, next to Britain," I prompt helpfully. "Ah, France!" he says and walks on, presumably blaming my French accent.
I should just say I'm French and stop the geography lesson, I think, particularly after I've gone through the entire prompt list of Bono, James Joyce, shamrocks, IRA/Belfast and even Westlife - and still drawn a blank. But then it all proves worth while. "What country are you coming from?" asks an elderly gentleman wearing a trade union badge in the dense crowds at the World Social Forum.
"Ireland,", I try again. "Ah, India owes you so much!" he says beaming at me and shaking my hand.
"Really?" This was surely a little over-the-top. "Yes, Ireland showed India the way. You started our independence - you threw out the British first!"
He calls his colleagues over, graciously introducing me as if I had personally influenced Mahatama Gandhi.
Mumbai, as Bombay is now re-named, steams with energy, colour and smells. Over 16 million people teem in its streets yet people still stop to see if you need help, delighted to use their English and curious to find out what you think of their city, which juts out into the Indian Ocean on the west coast of the sub-continent. At dawn on Marine Drive, people walk along the esplanade hoping to get a light breeze of air. At dusk they gathered at the Gateway to India, the impressive stone colonnade that we know from so many movies, and watch the sun go down.
But it is the noise, the sheer ear-splitting noise, which overwhelms you more than any of the sights. The thousands of battered and bruised yellow-and-black taxis seem permanently to sound their horns in unison. When that is combined with rush-hour at Churchgate train station,your ears and eyes begin to understand just what real human and car traffic is like. After sitting in a taxi for two hours trying to make a journey which had taken 30 minutes in the middle of the night, I silently vow not to complain about Dublin traffic for at least six months.
I take the train from Churchgate to Goregoan, the northern suburb where the Forum is being held in something akin to a giant RDS. I buy a ticket for the "ladies' carriage" and realise the other "ladies" think I have lost my mind in taking the train. At first I can't understand why: it all seems orderly and calm. Three stops from Churchgate and the crowds descend. Children are crammed under seats. Bodies squeeze into impossibly small spaces.
An old lady successfully sells vegetables in the midst of the human scrum and everyone remains polite and good-humoured. Two stops before mine a woman kindly takes me under her wing and pushes me towards the doorway. If you don't get in position early you'll never get out, she advises, happily pushing me forward. So, like Jonah from the whale, I breach the crowd trying to get on and land on the platform. I watch as men in the carriage beyond laugh and hang precariously from the doorway as the train, without mercy, moves on. "People must get killed," I mutter, mouth gaping. "Yes, they do," a woman replies, nodding sadly, walking on.
No one atop the packs of motorbikes that buzz between the bruised taxi-cabs wears a helmet. On a Friday night women in wonderful silk saris perch on the back of the bikes, their trailing robes fluttering dangerously around the wheels. Several have a baby hidden asleep in their laps. At each junction dozens of ragged, small children rush out from underneath the highway bridges where they live in makeshift homes, begging for a rupee coin.
Mumbai is a city of extremes. Five-star hotels overlook shanty-towns. The booming Bollywood movie empire and Asia's second largest slum, Dharavi, are two sides of a city crammed with hopeful migrants from across India. In a corner of one of those five-star hotels a group of European businessmen sit carving out an "off-shoring" deal with one of the Indian companies leading the IT services sector. The Frenchman heading the team says he flies into the airport, stays in the nearby hotel, does the deal and leaves. Mumbai is too much for him.
In the city centre a Sikh taxi-driver tells me Bombay - and he calls it Bombay - has a tiny piece of all of India. He doesn't like the name change, from the Portuguese for "good harbour" to the local Koli name for the Hindu goddess Parvati - Mumba devi.
Every ethnic group and religion is here - from Parsi, Jains and Jews to Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists and Christians - but the majority are Hindu and the biggest festival of the year is in late August for the much loved elephant-God, Lord Ganesh, the son of Parvati and Siva.
During the 10-day celebration giant clay Ganeshes are erected around the city and worshipped. On the last day the Ganesh idols are brought to the shorelines and immersed in water. I have to return one day to see all those elephant Gods dancing in the water on Chowpatty Beach.