Mumbai

I spent four wonderful years at IIT-Bombay pursuing my undergraduate studies. The times were good, I was carefree and world seemed to be a better place then. But this post is about Mumbai the city - from an outsider who is not a Marathi manoosh :) This looks to be a good time after the movie Slumdog Millionaire which was based in Mumbai has swept the Oscars.

I never quite understood Mumbai as a city. When I first came to Bombay (as it was called then), it was raining cats and dogs, roads were full of sewage, auto-rickshaws were driving with death-defying deftness, my luggage was fully wet, and my dorm room was at the ground floor with the brown water threatening to flood it. IIT-B itself from outside looked like a dilapidated cloth mill.

Bombay is full of peculiarities. For most parts, I didn't use to venture out of the campus - out of fear of getting lost! Well undergraduate life is demanding, so I had to go out for passport, a desktop computer etc. etc. Desktop computer took me to the red-light area of Bombay while passport office was in the posh area of Worli full with hip-hopping teens (it has a big Ganesha temple as well). Funnily enough, typical of Bombay, it is very easy to cross from Worli to the shady area without knowing (I learnt it first-hand unfortunately). I had to take the local trains for my travels. Traveling in locals at Bombay makes you ready for anything in life. You are so close to people that you can have to take in the smell of their sweat! Once I was stranded on the stairs as the platform was too full of people - you just could not go in! And local trains go through some pretty amusingly named stations - sample Chinchpokli, Kandivili, Borivili, Sion, Bhandup etc. etc. And for good measure, Mumbai's airport is ranked as the worst in recent surveys. Every year the city drains clog making the stench outside somehow reassuringly familiar.

So, what was there to love? First you just wonder at the sheer magnitude of humanity in this city. There are just too too many people. Your eyes get saturated to be frank. I think no other city in India can match Mumbai in this (except possibly Calcutta).

Secondly, the filth and squalor. It is hard to miss the abject poverty of many people. You go out and usually run into scores of people begging. Although poverty is disconcerting and has an universal appeal (go to the 'depressed areas' in New York City, LA, Pittsburgh etc. and you would know), poverty in Mumbai has a different feel. Yes, you have the usual criminals and beggars and robbers but you also have the inescapable hard workers who dream of breaking the shackles and making it big. The level of poverty in Mumbai is truly shocking in some areas. But yet, life goes on - they sell kid's color pencils on the local trains, sell beads on the platform, sell flowers whenever your taxi stops at a red-signal...

And with all this depressing reality Mumbai's glitz is like no other in India. It is the commercial and entertainment capital and a leading educational center (with a IIT, BARC and TIFR). Leading men of business, science, politics, glamor call Mumbai as their home. Mumbai has the choicest of restaurants, hotels, complexes, parks putting any city to shame. Mumbai's landmarks offer the unquantifiable quality of hope and aspiration. It is sometimes hard to not to wryly laugh at this disparity. When you are landing in the Mumbai airport, densely packed rows of slum houses welcome you on both sides of the runway. But get out of the airport, seven star hotels and chauffeurs jostle for your luggage. I always used to wonder - where did the slums disappear suddenly!? Has Mumbai mastered the art of turning the other way?

Fortunately not. Mumbai is easily the most 'humane' city I have ever visited. The inherent level of altruism in Mumbai is surprisingly high. I was once talking to an autorickshaw driver whose vehicle had been badly damaged in the rains. So, I guessed he must be cursing the rains (which are actually pretty pretty bad - the small showers that are passed off as heavy downpours here are another matter!). But in his opinion was the rains were necessary - he is thankful for them - rains keep the Mumbai lakes full of drinking water, and helps the cultivators to grow fruits and vegetables.

I think the local trains have a vital role in leveling the playing field. For most of Mumbai's people, locals are the only affordable way to go from Point A to Point B daily. Executives, contractors, labor or even beggars share the coach. No special treatment. This is quite remarkable as the differences between have and have nots are only too stark elsewhere. The cosmopolitan nature of the city ensures that outsiders and even occasional visitors get assimilated very soon. Mumbai people easily win hands down for being the most helpful people in India. People genuinely try to give you a helping hand. Accounts of heroism in Mumbai in the innumerable tragedies it has so stoically faced are indeed unparalleled. And it is the only city I have been to date where the autorickshaw drivers are not out to fleece you! Indeed, the endearing image of Mumbai is that of the people.

I guess Mumbai allows people do what they please and just live! It offers something for everyone from your slum dweller to your average multi-billionaire to your academic. The city is free of shackles induced by complex rigid histories and unnecessary social barriers that stagnate all too many cities in India. It has made all of them irrelevant to the pressing need of the immediate. It represents the epitome of human drive, hope and magnanimity amidst unbearable wretchedness. Mumbai symbolizes the oasis in the desert. What is there not to love?

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To end, a humorous post on the demanding skills of basic arithmetic :)