Malavika’s Mumbaistan: What Makes Mumbai Great?

What is Mumbai best known for? Its glamorous entertainment industry? Its omnipotent business barons? Its soaring high-rises and sweeping shoreline? Its teeming slums and overcrowded commuter trains

What is Mumbai best known for? Its glamorous entertainment industry? Its omnipotent business barons? Its soaring high-rises and sweeping shoreline? Its teeming slums and overcrowded commuter trains ..?

A college dropout, barely able to make ends meet, having spent his entire life in a small town in southern India, I could trace the fascination tinged with fear in his questions about my hometown. (HT)

Recently, on a trip away from the city, the question intrigued me. Again and again, in the faces of the people I met, many of whom had never visited the metropolis, I saw the city’s various stereotypes reflected in their thoughts, when they learnt I was from Mumbai.

Like my twenty-something taxi driver, taking me to my hotel who had heard through his friends that it was very crowded and that life was very challenging in Mumbai, but that ‘the opportunities for jobs were good.’

A college dropout, barely able to make ends meet, having spent his entire life in a small town in southern India, I could trace the fascination tinged with fear in his questions about my hometown. Was it true that people lost their lives daily while travelling on the local trains due to overcrowding? Was it true that top film stars could be spotted walking around localities like ordinary people? Was it true that the whole city would get submerged during the annual monsoon flooding and that at any given time –night or day-the roads were crammed with cars moving bumper to bumper?

Willy-nilly I found myself explaining what living in Mumbai was like; I knew I had to be truthful: ‘Yes, it is very crowded; yes, the flooding is a constant peril; yes, the every day journey for commuters is fraught and hazardous and the traffic situation is dreadful… but..’ (and here, I found myself hastening to reassure the crestfallen countenance of my interlocutor)’ but,’ I continued. ‘the people in Mumbai are special’

“Yes, didi “ he cheered up, smiling brightly ‘I heard Mumbai’s people are very special’.

***

This brings us, I suppose, to the famous ‘spirit of Mumbai’.

Alluding to the pragmatic, sensible, and tenacious nature of its citizenry, for long the phrase was used as shorthand for the distinctive characteristics of what it took to be a Mumbaiker. The ‘get up and go’, ‘business as usual’ ‘never say die’ stance, demonstrated by its citizens when faced with floods, riots, disasters and catastrophes. Over decades, it was observed that Mumbaikers would take everything in their stride, be it building collapses, accidents, bomb blasts, fires, or floods; dusting off the debris, making contingency plans and showing up to their places of work the next morning, come what may, the famous Mumbai spirit was known to take it all in its stride. After all, that’s what living in a complex and challenging megapolis demanded, didn’t it?

But over the years, the phrase has come in for some drubbing; many realised that though it was an accurate description of the city’s intrinsic psyche, it was also dis-ingenious, placing unfair pressure on its people to live up to the portrayal: Yes, Mumbaikers were celebrated again and again for their legendary grace under pressure in the face of interminable challenges, but-and this is what irked many when the Mumbai’s famous spirit was invoked-what choice did they really have? Did the typecasting actually demand unreasonable measures of resilience and buoyancy from them? It has certainly begun to appear so and hence; the phrase is increasingly used with cynicism and weariness by its citizenry…

***

So, besides its much-lauded spirit of resilience, what makes the people of Mumbai so special? What sets them apart and gives them their distinctive appeal, for a young taxi driver in a small town to break into a smile? IMHO it is their spirit of inclusivity. Because, for all the fractious differences touted by its various religious leaders, political parties, media outlets and ordinary citizens, there is not an iota of doubt that Mumbai’s very ethos is that of inclusivity. On its streets, in its offices, on its trains and buses and in its public spaces, eateries, shops, cinemas and malls, in fact, wherever you go, there is no escaping the fact that the city belongs to people of every hue and type, of every circumstance and context. And the weary Mumbaiker, from the shopkeeper at a corner Kirana, to the itinerant hawker selling vegetables on a busy curb, to the waiter in a humble café, to the corporate titan or the marketing whizz at the very top of its food chain, knows that regardless of the religion, caste, class or ideology of their customer –in the end, it’s business that matters and the only way forward is to put aside differences and divisions and get on with one’s day and life.

The very geography of Mumbai requires this. Its high-rises, colonies and neighbourhoods boast a multiplicity of communities and in their heart, its people know that the only way the city can work is by inclusivity and harmony. Office-goers sharing their lunches and workspaces daily, with no thought of which Gods or leaders their colleagues follow; teachers, lawyers and doctors treating those who seek their services with a uniform ethic; lawmakers and law keepers, ensuring that they serve all of the citizenry without bias or prejudice. This inclusivity is knit in to the very fabric and DNA of the city, and I would like to believe that no matter how strident and cynical are the motives of those who want to destroy its spirit of inclusivity –Mumbaikers know that in the end, they have only each other and their fraught, punishing, challenging city, their city that demands every ounce of their energy and acuity to get by.

***

There is one more quality that makes Mumbai’s people stand out. And unfashionable as it may sound, it is their decency. Not the pious kindness of do-gooders and holier than thou pretenders, but rather an innate, bluff decency, borne out of a people, ground down by daily circumstance, who know they’re in it together.

Left a valuable personal item on a train or taxi? Chances are it will be returned. Need a few more days to pay your grocer’s bill? Most likely, your unspoken, long relationship will ensure that it is given. Require last-minute medicine or advice on a crucial service? More likely than not, there will be people who will come to your aid, putting aside their own harried routines, to offer help or at least a kind word. Of course, there are exceptions to the rule and many will come up with their own counter arguments-but having lived in Mumbai for five decades, it is not without a measure of pride that I can say that it is this spirit of resilience, inclusivity and every day, the decency that sets the city and its people apart and makes it a place which lights up the face of even a young taxi driver in a small town, who has only heard stories about the big bad city we call home.