The unbearable rightness of being Mumbai

This city that is called Mumbai is incredible. I am obviously a little biased, but I think it is not just wonderful, but interesting, absorbing, mysterious and magical as well. While I love New York and could live there anytime I am able to, and I thoroughly enjoy being in London, Geneva, Denver, San Francisco, Paris and Madrid, or in so many other cities scattered around the world, I would prefer to be where I belong, in amchi Mumbai, the city that is home. With all its eccentricities and strangeness, it is a place that has a charisma, an undeniable charm, a bonhomie and joie de vivre that nowhere else can lay claim to. And the Mumbaikar has managed to nicely perfect that blend of chalta hai with kya hua and a touch of kaun jaane, making the species uniquely big city in essence, with a scattering of very small village nosiness thrown in for good measure.

Perhaps my favourite aspect of Mumbai is its fabulously contrary nature. The obvious, of course, stares anyone in the face if they actually see it – and the average Mumbaikar is inured to it, so is blind to it, too. The contrast, as ‘true life’ documentaries, both print and film, tell it, between rich and poor is seen best perhaps in this city. There will be slums across the street from luxury apartments, and scavengers walk cheek by jowl with those who fling garbage out of their elitist automobiles. Party-goers heading to the next bar share pavement space with vagrants huddled asleep under piles of rags. And urchins play cricket on the maidan just out of boundary of the school team practising at the nets.

And there is that attitude I already mentioned – one the one hand, the Mumbaikar is way too busy doing his or her own thing, rushing from home to work, or meeting to meeting, or from school to class to party to, at last, bed. Somewhere along the way, this busy-busy-busy person stops to ask how the neighbour’s aunt’s brother-in-law’s cousin’s friend’s son’s class teacher is after her hysterectomy and learns exactly how many spoons of salt to use in a pickle made of four kilos of mangoes that are not too sour and not too sweet but which someone with high blood pressure who has been told to avoid it will insist on eating. This same person will also hurry past a morcha without reading the boards held high by those demonstrating against or for something or the other and hop skip and jump over a sidewalk magic show put on for the benefit of street children who are getting a hot meal and some laughter in an otherwise bleak existence.

There is a wonderful anonymity about being a Mumbaikar, just like there is in almost any big city that runs almost purely on the energy of big business and high pressure financial transactions. No one will ask you your name when you stop at a roadside stall to buy a pen and the man who sold you your afternoon tabloid will smile only if he has been seeing you almost every day at the same time carrying the same umbrella for the past five and a half years, rain, shine or bandh. At the same time, everyone will rush to pick you up when you trip over a dug up road and fall flat on your face, strewing bag, papers and mobile phone around you. They will brush you down, give you back your various possessions and find you water to drink. Some will ask if you need more help, others will smile sympathetically and wave at you as you limp across the road to the station. And a few will be on the same train, check on you at your destination and make sure that you have not collapsed even a few days later.

This, bless it, is Mumbai. It is my city, the one that makes me laugh and reduces me to tears, turns my stomach and makes me hungry, the place I love as much as I hate it. This is my home.