Salaam Bombay - a brief, bittersweet ode

Certain Uncertainties

Taxes are probably the second greatest certainty in life – death being the most certain – so, I am sure attending the 2014 IFA Congress in Bombay was quite an important event for humanity. But I would like to write about things less certain. Like traffic rules, and sleep in Bombay.

Arriving at about midnight, I asked the taxi driver to drive to my parents’ place instead of the hotel. After chatting with them for about three hours, I drove myself to the hotel. Now, the spot where I parked the car was a perfectly legitimate parking spot until a few years ago when I lived in Bombay, but apparently things had quietly changed. So, I found the front wheel of the car jammed. The police arrived in a few minutes and asked me to pay a 300-rupee fine for parking at the wrong place. After politely arguing with them that there was no `No Parking´ sign indicating the change of rule, they offered to reduce the “fine” to 200 rupees. Refusing to bribe, I asked them to fine me the 300 rupees and duly give me a receipt. As it turned out, the actual fine was only 100 rupees!

I had arrived in Bombay with little sleep, and quite a workload, yet the sweltering heat would not allow any sleep. The October smog hung heavy on the city and it was a chore to breathe. Given that taxis are not always air-conditioned, I had chosen to drive myself.

Next evening I drove with Emily, Sorrel and Pasquale to Copper Chimney – a nearby restaurant – thinking the task was quite a breeze. How mistaken I was. On our way back from the restaurant, a destitute lady approached us, asking for money to buy food. I had anticipated this, and had had the left over food – and there was lots of it – packed to give to them. Promptly snatching the food off my hands, “but I want money”, said the mother. “But you said you wanted it to buy food”, I foolishly reasoned with her. Sensitivity to the destitute in Bombay, I regret to say, is like blood to a shark. Almost instantaneously, the entire family of beggars, which included the father and three little children no older than 7 years, mobbed us. We literally had to make a dash for the car and lock the doors shut. But even as I tried to back out the car the beggars persisted. The parents started beating the windows, and the kids ran around the car, giving me a fright that I may run them over. I finally had to get out of the car and yell at them like I have never before. Stunned, they scurried to disappear into the maze of parked flashy cars. Yet the yelling seemed to have stunned me the most. Trying to control my emotions, I sat still in the driver’s seat for a moment before quietly driving off to the hotel, from where one might see Antilia – the glittering 2-billion-dollar house of the richest man in India scraping the sky.

I was exhausted and exasperated, and desperately needed to sleep. But the adrenalin from the drive and events surrounding it would not let me.

The city of dreams

Bombay was not always the beehive that it is today. It was originally a small archipelago of seven fishing islands. So hostile were the conditions that one’s life expectancy in Bombay was about 40 years. However, Bombay also had a hospitable natural harbor, perfect for navigation. The British set up the first textile mills in the island of Parel, reclaimed some land from the seas, and built the first railway line in the 1850s. The textile mills attracted scores of job seekers and tradesmen – including my great-great-grandfather – from outside, and Bombay rapidly urbanized. The magnificent buildings of the University of Bombay and the Bombay High Court and were erected by the late 1950s and early 1860s, with many cricket grounds and parks around them. The savage swamp had been metamorphosed into a city of palaces and parks. In Bombay was born India’s first modern cosmopolis. This was the city where fortunes could be made, dreams could be dared to be dreamed, and they could indeed come true. This was (and is) a city where the least importance is attached to a person’s caste, creed, or colour.

While the textile mills have now given way to shopping malls, glass offices, and five-star hotels, and there are more cosmopolitan cities in India, Bombay is still the city of dreams. Hundreds, if not thousands, of dreamers pour into the city everyday – a large portion whom aspire to make it big in Bollywood – the ultimate dream weaving machine.

Whether or not the immigrants realise their dreams, Bombay continues to be the quintessential city of dreams. People arrive with dreams to chase, some run fast enough to catch up, while others keep chasing. And as the iron wheels keep rolling on steel tracks, dreams no longer remain an end, but turn into a means of survival.

Mumbai Bombay

As you may have noticed, I seldom use the city’s current official name, and prefer calling it Bombay. I may come across as an anglophile, but the city remains Bombay for me for very definite political reasons. The name change occurred in 1995 – the year in which the Shiv Sena and BJP, far right, fascist outfits came to power – soon after Bombay had joined the nationwide communal riots of in which scores of people died. The memories of the night sky glowing yellow from burning homes from a slum not so far away are still vivid. I clearly remember how the overwhelming Hindu majority in my 4^th grade class bullied the sole Muslim classmate, and discussions between 10-year-olds were often about how society should be cleansed of the Muslim plague.

The name Mumbai was a result of nationalistic chauvinism stoked by communal passions, which was I think is an exception to Bombay – the city. It may perhaps not be an exaggeration to say that its current name is soaked in blood. Not even if most of its inhabitants have forgotten (the same political outfits, which were responsible for the violence 20 years ago, are currently in power).

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Bombay may shock you or amuse you or shock and amuse you – but will amaze you anyway. If I were to write any more about it, it might turn into a biography of the city. Since poetry condenses what prose elaborates, let me leave you with a short poem I wrote about the textile mills of Bombay, which lay shut for years before most of them were torn down.

The textile mills of Bombay brought it its glory

But prosperity seems to have forgotten their way.

The tall chimneys, still robust,

Seem like cigars lying in dust.

Their fate however has opened my eye;

Why shall I court glory, so fickle?

It seems to me too stale a day.