India’s new top secret theme park

Little Lord Krishna

On Saturday night, I went to a party in Bandra held in a nice flat with a deck and air-conditioned living room. And of course, in the early stages of the night, everyone crammed themselves into the kitchen, with its counter full of booze, where it was hot and narrow and easy to make friends. There, I met a tall German guy wearing a vintage t-shirt featuring Pinocchio and cursive caption reading I grow. The German was already a little flushed from the heat or sangria and, defenses thus compromised, told me something he shouldn’t have:

“I’m helping to design an amusement park,” he said. An amusement park? Yes, a new theme park to be built an hour-and-a-half outside of Mumbai in the direction of Pune. But its location was, he assured me, secret.

We were soon joined by the German’s colleague, a forty-something guy from Los Angeles  with a slightly stunned expression: he was six weeks into a three-year contract in Mumbai, and couldn’t quite believe it. “Can you believe it?” he kept asking me. A former Disney employee, the guy is now working for an Indian company that he preferred not to name (and he didn’t want to be named either, so I’ll call him T). And the Indian company was making it impossible for him to design this theme park.

“So what’s the theme?” I asked him.

“That’s the problem.” he said. “There is no theme. Since you’re the writer, why don’t  you come up with some ideas?” So I told him that India is overloaded with a millennium or two of mystical gods and goddesses. Why not do a Hindu religion themed-park?

“We thought of that,” sighed T. “But it would be too offensive.” I pointed out that there are all sorts of playful television shows and movies featuring the gods here — a baby-blue Little Lord Krishna cavorting in a cartoon forest, little Lord Ganesha dancing around with singing mice.

T was shaking his head, “Look, we proposed doing a carousel where the kids could ride around on giant sitars and tabla drums, but the company said no, because it would be disrespectful to the instruments.”

This threw me, but not for long. How about a ride based on the Ramanaya, which is the story of the mortal hero Rama defeating the evil multi-armed demon Ravana and rescuing Sita, his  true love? How about a ride where you can ride the vehanas, the signature animals ridden by the Gods?

“We’ve got both,” he said. So wasn’t  Indian mythology the theme then?

“No,” said T. “Because the entrance to the park is Mumbai Main Street.” What! “Yes, the entrance to the park is Mumbai Main Street.”

And I pictured park employees dressed as beggars and vendors, and pits in the sidewalk, and rickshaws playfully careening into park guests. I imagined a Mumbai family of four piling into the Maruti and braving the traffic-crawl of Sion, and Bhandup, and all points east, and driving high up into the golden hills of the western ghats, and finally pulling into a  parking lot only to be greeted by a sign cheerily proclaiming, Welcome to Mumbai Main Street. I imagined leaving Mumbai only to reenter an idealized version of Mumbai… only what would that be? All I could think was that it would be smaller and cleaner, with a miniature Gateway of India.

“Well I guess that the theme park doesn’t need a theme,” I said. “Probably no one will notice.”

And T said, “Probably not.”

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