The past week or so has been unseasonably cold for Mumbai and everyone has been shivering gently around the edges, even the die-hard, self-professed, semi-Eskimo-related folks who are transplants to the city from more icy climes. Today I went out in the blazing sunshine and found that my fingertips were frosty and my nose started running, my toes curled in their search for a warmer part of my sandals and my cheeks were slowly going pink. Meanwhile, the wind blew my hair around my head in a streaky black cloud and my eyes watered black runnels of un-waterproof mascara along the rim of my lashes and the corners of my eyes. As I walked along the shopping street to my destination, I found people in sweaters, shawls and – I almost stopped to stare there – one young thing proudly showed off a pair of pink Ugg boots worn over skintight jeans and a tiny camisole (presumably only her bottom half was cold, the top seemed quite happy bare). And I was quite glad to dive into the store I was headed to, with its tinny piped music and all, because it sheltered me from the wind, so dried out my sniffles and let me replace my dishevel with a general state of more dignified kempt-ness.
They say it is all because of cold spells in the north of the country that we are more chilly than we are used to being down here in the mid-lands. The breeze blowing in from the sea is cool, getting colder as the sun sinks slowly over the horizon. And the tall buildings act as funnels for the gale to shoot down the roads that snake between them. Even as we shiver, as we drive with the air-conditioner off and we snuggle into sweaters that would normally be relegated to a mothballed suitcase in the attic, we revel in the novelty of being able to jog around the block without sweating, even welcoming the crush of the crowds in the commuter trains and the hordes of people who clamour for the bus. At work I yell for the air-conditioning to be switched off until there are more people in the vast space to warm it up and I drink mugs of hot water (or herbal tea) to make my insides a little warmer than my outside can be in this environment.
But even as we huddle against the cold, we Mumbaikars are a warm lot. We care, we get involved, we have the strange disregard for personal privacy that is so characteristically Indian. We are not the anonymous big city that I have always preferred being a resident of. We know our neighbours and their troubles, we help our servants through domestic tribulation and we want to know what life in the other building is all about. But there is one snob value that is truly ours that we are very proud of: the fact that we are Mumbaikars because we live here. This is our city. It belongs to us and we belong to it.
That, at the moment, is causing some upheaval in this city. A cold wind of dissent and disturbance is blowing in through the city. There is a section of the political fraternity that insists that Mumbai is for Maharashtrians. They, spurred on by their leader, have been saying – nay, yelling – so for a while now, but the yelling is getting more strident and more aggressive. Over the past couple of days, there has even been violence when the matter has been debated. Why should someone who lives here and calls Mumbai his home be willing to work for the betterment of another part of the country, is one question being asked. It is indeed a valid one, since it is the immediate environment that should be nurtured first. But, as one sassy, seasoned, savvy politician has said, we should be saying not that Mumbai is ours, but that India is.
We may be Mumbaikars, and very proud of it, but we are, over all the argument, Indians. Which is a matter for even greater pride.
No comments:
Post a Comment