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As the valiant people
of Mumbai, fight and bounce back, be it after the terror strike or
nature’s fury, their tenacity triumphs. Neelam
Mansingh Chowdhry recounts the factors that make Mumbai a
symbol of eternal hope
There are as many myths about Mumbai as there are pavement dwellers in it. Skyscrapers and shanty towns, Gothic towers, art deco and vernacular architecture all coalesce to form the multidimensional characteristic that gives Bombay its special temperament — a city where people have learnt to endure, a city where people have to dream to survive, and a city where hope still lingers despite floods, bomb blasts and communal feuds. Ironically, Bombay was never meant to be a city. Mumbadevi, or Mumbai as we call it now, was not an indigenous Indian city, but a city built by the British to maintain trade links with India. The city evolved from small settlements into an urban nightmare, as nothing was planned or structured. When you talk about the city, no singular or enduring image emerges, and the mind gets crowded with a kaleidoscopic vision of many identities and voices. There are rich layers of ethnic and social groups, each asserting their own characteristic on the palimpsest that makes Bombay, or Mumbai the ‘Maximum City’. The strength and weakness of the city is manifested through this ambiguity. Just imagine a heaving dragon beneath your bed. Is it possible to sleep in such a bed when you never know when the dragon is going to turn and topple your world? That is what Mumbai has become. Fear lurks in every corner, suspicion in every eye. These gargantuan white ants gnawing at the city’s vital entrails have corroded any possibility of faith and belief in the system’s ability to provide safety and succour to its besieged citizens. Where does one go, who does one turn to? How long will we use the old arguments of the enemy from outside, when that enemy is in our own stars: in our corrupt political set-up and in the grasping avarice of the political bosses. The city has exploded time and again, in the nature of bombs and water flooding. For all of us living outside Mumbai, we cannot perceive this as another headline, happening to someone else — but a reality that will soon infiltrate in our own thresholds, corroding the security, of everyone’s home and family. A dead husband and a missing child is a tragedy that only those who have experienced it know. For others the dead and injured become a number. But behind this numerical fa`E7ade lies a family destroyed, a love torn asunder, a city betrayed.
The water clogging last year was like the Biblical Deluge, with images of carcasses floating on the streets of Mumbai making a mockery of all the suffixes and prefixes of Mumbai being the commercial capital of the country as well as being the highest tax payer to the sarkari coffers. Is this the city that was going to be transformed into the next Shanghai?! Obviously the sleeping dragon that is under our bed is our blighted politician, who over and over again stretches our nerves with rhetoric and self-righteous platitudes that like a toxic gas corrode and burn our insides. They should have their heads dunked in the eddying water, created by an indifferent municipality and a politician/ land mafia nexus which they control. Every morning and evening millions of commuters travel by the vertical lifeline of suburban trains that spew them to and from their place of work. Will they ever enter a train without thinking of the unseen danger that it will now suggest? We talk about the resilience of the Mumbaikars, their spirit of compassion, their capacity to regain their equilibrium after such a horrific disasters like the serial bomb blasts on March 12, 1993, the December 2 blast in Ghatkopar, the December 6 blast in Vile Parle in 2002, the March 13 blast at the Mulund railway station, and the twin blast at the Gateway of India and Zaveri bazaar on August 25 in 2003. The Mumbaikars now add to that list the Tuesday 2006, coordinated bomb blast. By handing a platter of nouns (terror, terrorists, terrorism) to the citizens of the city, we cannot hope to assuage the multiple disasters that the city has become. I have always loved Bombay, which I have to admit will never be Mumbai to me. When I got married and shifted to Bombay in 1976, my husband’s family lived in one of the few remaining Edwardian styled bungalows on Cuffe Parade built in an eclectic style optimising the use of the sea-front location. I was told that at one time the sea came almost up to their doorstep. After that the pungent smell of drying fish was what the breeze brought in. The staircase with its rosewood banister and an apron of exquisite green iris ceramic tiles on the wall would at night become beds for homeless migrants seeking protection from the streets and the vagaries of the weather. I always felt safe. Rushing from Cuffe Parade to Mahim for rehearsals, and then to Juhu for shows at the Pritivi Theatre was the pattern of my life.. Changing trains during rush hours and returning late at night without any shadow of fear was an attitude which most commuters carried around like a badge during that time. Amchi Mumbai was the proud preface before each sentence. Having escaped the provincialism of Amritsar (where my family lived) and by shifting to Delhi as a student, the Bombay chapter in my life was liberating. Delhi, in contrast, seemed parochial where getting your bottoms pinched and money flinched was the order of any excursion either while walking to Bengali market for your evening chai, or sauntering down the grand corridors of Connaught Place. Bombay, for me, was a revelation. The cast of characters that I met and interacted with in Bombay were as varied as their eccentricities. These eccentricities were sometimes acquired as an affectation but more often as a necessity. How else would they be noticed in a densely packed city, where space was a luxury and silence a forgotten note? Bombay was a city where one was not recognised or affirmed by where you lived, caste, or how much you had. What mattered was your talent, spirit and sense of fun. No boundaries existed. A wealthy actor was happy to mingle with a struggling writer for his wit of tongue and torn kurta, even though his bungalow may be the footpath. I recall one evening when in this megalopolis, an evening at the home of an upwardly mobile executive in Malabar Hill had an advertising mogul, sporting an akubra hat, walk in with an Alsatian dog on a diamante lease. Another surrealistic evening, organised by an artist friend, who wanted to show a curator from England the ‘Real India’ had him escort him to Foras Road to see a mujra. In my m`E9lange of memories I recall meeting Rajesh Khanna at a party where he introduced himself saying Iss nacheez ko Rajesh Khanna kehte hain. I recall stuttering with ecstasy and saying "I know, I know". This was at a time when he was the great superstar capable of evoking mass hysteria. This city of desperate contrast had seduced me and I was in no mood to exit for my husband posting to Chandigarh. I had by now also fallen in love with those things that used to upset me earlier. The smell of drying fish from the fishing village opposite our house, now smelt like my early morning comfort. The jostling of the crowds while walking down Colaba causeway provided the energy that nurtured my world, the smell of urine and vomit clinging to the air one breathed seemed exotic as I rushed around the sprawling overpopulated streets. I had become besotted by the city and had discovered in its underbelly, the real grid of the city. I connected with the vitality and danger it symbolized. I knew the ubiquitous pao bhaji sold on every street corner could not be a metaphor for the city , as nothing in the city blended smoothly, nothing was evenly buttered. It certainly was not a melting pot, nor was it cohesive, but like an onion each layer revealed another world. Mumbai has been celebrated for its proximity to the glitz and glamour of the Hindi film industry and to the changing temperature of its Sensex but the bomb blast on Tuesday is a terrifying reminder that no one is safe anymore. I am constantly chipping away at my energies by worrying about my son who is studying in St Xavier’s college Mumbai and our large extended family that stays there. I get demented when I see images of water cascading down like some sort of vengeful apocalypse, and bodies splattered on railway tracts. Sitting far away multiplies my anxiety for my family and friends. All these horrific events have definitely changed the inner landscape for the citizens of Mumbai. Yet outwardly they continue with the same rhythm carrying their bag of fear and anxiety while they hop into the trains, go into the stock exchange and take a walk down the boulevard near the Gateway of India. The entire world watches
the hapless citizens of Mumbai , and clap to their collective courage
and bravery, saluting their capacity to bounce back, but do the people
of Mumbai have a choice? If they do not bring home that pay packet, if
they do not pull that cart, if they do not drive that taxi, if they do
not swab the floor, how will they put food in the mouth of their
mothers, fathers, sisters or children? The world has gone awry, while
that giant dragon sleeps on, oblivious in his amnesia till his next
cataclysmic turn.
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