AYE DIL HAI MUSHKIL JEENA YAHAN …

My recent visit to BOMBAY

I first came to this city – Bombay, when I was 20, and have been here a few times since then. It’s a place in India I am proud of – lowest crime rates, women safety, sociable people, the list is endless. Every time I come here, I feel I should have been born here. Despite jibes about overcrowding, matchbox housing, sardonically packed trains, perennially repaired roads, one off criminal incidents, I hold firm that Bombay is not about space or basic amenities (or the lack of it), but more importantly about the resilience and courage of its inhabitants.

Over 75% work attendance after the BLACK FRIDAY and the more recent LOCAL BLAST clears the doubt, if any, that Mumbaikars (people who work in Bombay, no pun intended) are not easily terrorized or beaten. This is my tribe, this is where I belong, there’s nowhere else on this earth I’d rather be.

But this time when I came to the shores of the Arabian Sea, I discovered new things, and I’ve realized that all the platitudes are exaggerated and oversimplified. So much has been said about the spirit of the people here – hour long TV shows, short films, newspaper columns, but beneath all the top stories lies a hard reality. This is not a friendly city, this is the Maximum City and has the ability to make money, and the people here are – “to get rich or die trying”. This is the real reason why cab drivers will drop a girl safely at 2am, instead of taking her down a dark alley.

Step back and take one look at the city when it’s not in disaster management mode. People here are not involved unless it means – “ROKDA”. That's why every one is rushing somewhere. This is a selfish city, the homes are clean, but the streets are dirty, filled with garbage and lined with PAAN stains. The houses are glaring of DIWALI luminance, but the street lights are out. Driving past a road accident, people often wonder – “should I stop and help” (is it worth the hassle!), but somewhere each one wishes that someone would stop and help.

It’s a tolerant city though; it tolerates all nuisances - poor roads, pathetic living conditions in slums, citizens being stabbed and looted in public, improper governance and corrupt politicians (the value flows down the line from there). The citizen here needs to stop tolerating. The space will never increase, the population always will, the politician may never be incorrupt, but then a city is only as great as its inhabitants. The only justice we can do to Mumbai is by being the real Mumbaikars – not only in headlines at the time of crisis but at all times.

In the movie Gladiator, Rome was defined as an idea, an idea so fragile that it could disappear even if you whisper it. Bombay is an idea too – a place where one could work, live and prosper, irrespective of caste, sexual preference or ethnicity. In the national budget the finance minister said India Inc. has plans to make Mumbai - the Gateway to India. The marketing brochure remains the same, but somewhere the product has changed.