Mission Mumbai: A Novel of Sacred Cows, Snakes, and Stolen Toilets

Travel to the colorful and chaotic streets of India from the comfort of your home in this hilarious and heartfelt story about friendship and family. When aspiring photographer Dylan Moore is invited to join his best friend Rohit Lal on a family trip to India, he jumps at the chance to embark on an exciting journey just like their Lord of the Rings heroes, Frodo and Sam. But each boy comes to the trip with a problem: Rohit is desperate to convince his parents not to leave him behind in Mumbai to finish school, and Dylan is desperate to use his time in India to prove himself as a photographer and to avoid his parents' constant fighting. Keeping their struggles to themselves threatens to tear the boys apart. But when disaster strikes, Dylan and Rohit realize they have to set aside their differences to navigate India safely, confront their family issues, and salvage their friendship. MAHTAB NARSIMHAN is the author of several critically acclaimed books, including Silver Birch Award winner The Third Eye. Her novel The Tiffin (Dancing Cat Books, 2011), was nominated for numerous awards in Canada and was recently published in the United Kingdom and Taiwan. Mission Mumbai is her first book for Scholastic. Mahtab is a native of Mumbai, India, and lives in Vancouver, Canada. Visit her online at www.mahtabnarsimhan.com. From MISSION MUMBAI:We zoomed through the streets of the city as it stirred to life. In front of dilapidated huts, made entirely of recyclable material, stoves were already lit, heating up steaming pots of food. Women squatted on sidewalks, totally at home in this open-air kitchen. I was amazed at how comfortable they looked, living on the street. Sufficiently awake by now, I started clicking away on my Nikon, pausing every few seconds to wipe my sweaty hands on my shorts.Shortly after, we arrived at Victoria Terminus. It was the equivalent of Grand Central Station in New York City, but it couldn't have been more different. Nothing had prepared me for the explosion of sight, sound, and color. Even at 6:45 the place was packed. People jostled us, calling out to one another as they hurried toward the dusty white-and-blue carriages waiting patiently along the length of the station. Sweating porters with unimaginably heavy loads balanced on their heads loped by. They were followed by families probably on their way to the country for vacations. The pungent smells of samosas, fresh ink, and pee lingered in the air. I stood there and gaped, enveloped in a frenzy of human activity unlike anything I'd seen before. There also lingered a twinge of panic. If I got lost here, how would I find my way back home? Why had I refused to carry the cell phone Mom had offered?