My Mumbai

I still remember the first time I came to this magical city. I was a young starry-eyed summer intern, and we were to have an induction here before we were dispatched to our respective locations. Mine was Bangalore. Sorry, Bengaluru, lest the cultural police come hounding to my gates. And the city, as shown to me by a kind friend in the limited time I had, was magical. It had so much beauty and in the cover of the night, when I first saw it, none of the ugliness of its teeming crowds. And, it had the sea.

I have been told Mumbai evokes only one out of two responses in a person, you either love it or hate it, there’s no middle path. And I have discovered how much you love or hate Mumbai is directly proportional to your means, for Mumbai, more than any other city, is not very kind to people who come to its gates with their pockets empty.

It does, however, give you ample opportunity to fill those pockets. As a friend explained to me one day, Mumbai has so many problems, and for certain people, it means that many more opportunities to solve those problems, and voila, you have a new business model in place. It may mean flower-stalls mushrooming on the highway just before the airport, for the perennially time starved Mumbaikar needs some place to pick up flowers for the loved ones (or not so loved ones) arriving. It may mean people selling everything you need, and quite a few things you don’t on just outside local train stations, railway foot-over bridges, and even within the train itself. So, if you are willing to brave its harsh welcome, get your soul and body crushed in the pell-mell of rush-hour local trains, willing to call home what in other towns would not even be called a room, yes, Mumbai is the land of opportunity, the city of dreams.

There is one other Mumbai too, the one that you fall in love with. The place where you do not think twice about taking in a late night movie show after work because you know you will get an auto to ferry you back home. The place where you do not always have to keep checking if what you are wearing would cause raised eyebrows. The place where you can go out for an ice cream at 11 in the night and know you will find it. And the place where you have so much to do, that you literally want to have 48 hours in a day to be able to do it all. Where you can be cerebral and trivial, all in the course of a single day.

More often than not, I find myself defending the city and its flaws (oh, it has its flaws too) to people who I end up discussing Mumbai with. Does it mean that I am falling in love with it? May be. Would it be too bad if I were?

It’s difficult to say. It’s difficult for me to claim that I love a city where I spend around 3 hours each day commuting to and from work. Where I always resolve that I will not be taken in by the ‘smart’ taxi drivers only to find that they have newer tricks up their sleeves. Yeah, I fell for the one where I gave a 500(I think) only to be told that it was a 100. Where I can either hope to live my life, or have a home, but not do both simultaneously. Where I need air-conditioning 24 hours a day, 12 months a year to survive the weather. And no, Imran Khan, Bangalore beats Mumbai hands down for the weather it has.

They say Mumbai is addictive. And, I have been smoking this particular joint for a while now.