Bombay - it is no more!

September 13th, 2009. That was the day on which I finally accepted that it would never be the same. The time was about 7:30 in the morning. The rickshaw was crossing the nallah on Link Road in Andheri or perhaps it is Jogeshwari. As the sun peeked out from behind the smog laden sky, and my nose was assaulted by the full force of a Mumbai morning, I finally accepted that my romance with Bombay was over and that Bombay existed only in my imagination.

I had marveled through the floods of 2005 at the resilience of the people of Bombay. On 7/11/2006, I had waited anxiously by the phone to hear that my niece and her mom had reached home safely, and I tried not to think of the trauma my sister-in-law went through as she saw the victims of the bomb blast at Bandra railway station.

I proudly cheered on the integrity and unquenchable spirit of the young heroes of Slumdog Millionaire, turning a blind eye to the criminals who tested that spirit.

On 26/11 I wept as I watched the carnage in South Bombay, and I wept again when I heard that a dear friend had been one of the hostages. And I took comfort in knowing how he had held onto the indomitable Bombay spirit to the very end, believing he could charm the terrorists into letting him live. I read every single story about the attack, and while my heart bled over the senseless carnage, it also swelled with pride at the bravery and the determination of the people in the attack. Along with every other Bombayite, I applauded the determination of the hoteliers to re-open their doors, to restore their establishments to their full glory and deny the terrorists any semblance of a victory.

Through twenty three years of living in the United States, I had firmly held onto my image of Bombay – a slightly chaotic, but generally efficient city, united in the honest and determined pursuit of wealth and self-improvement, a city in which people minded their own business, and respected your desire to make an honest living. And while its streets were not exactly paved with gold, you did not need much to get started. You could count on the infrastructure to work, most days anyway.

You could count on being safe, even at 2am in the morning, and you could count on public transport. Yeah, you could get yourself into trouble – but you really had to go looking for it, it generally did not go out of its way to confront you.

The city teemed with energy. No city quite matched Churchgate station at rush hour – though New York city tried occasionally (and I haven’t been to Tokyo – but I suspect it is far more orderly).

And then just like that, that Sunday morning, I realized the Bombay I was thinking about was a figment of my imagination. Today’s Mumbai is larger, more crowded, more chaotic and the will to make an honest living has turned into a miserable drudge to just survive.

Oh yes, the spirit lingers. It even thrives in some pockets. But I am starting to think that that is the exception rather than the rule. Yes, the slum dwellers find things to be joyous about their condition. And yes, that is all part of the indomitable spirit. But seriously, is the choice to live in a slum, an actual choice they make?

People of all communities and religions live alongside peaceably each focused on earning their living. But isn’t this also where we have seen some of the worst communal riots ? Isn’t this the same city where a mob attacked a TV station because it had had the nerve to criticize their leader ?

Today, I think the various terrorist attacks, the various “acts of nature” that have inflicted harm on Mumbai were all avoidable. Or at the very least their impact could have been blunted through better management and infrastructure.

Instead of holding on firmly and with pride to the image of my college mate who is now one of Mumbai’s most respected policemen, I pray for his safety. I pray that he may just be allowed to live his life as he chooses, and I wish he would not choose to live it so dangerously.

I had never reconciled myself to the black cages that adorn every window, or the mosaic of cement lined cracks on building built in the late 50s and 60s, and I am sure that that was somewhere in my consciousness that Sunday morning.

I had been to a high school reunion the previous night, there I had met classmates from primary school from a zillion, ok 30+, years ago. It had been a wonderful evening of reminiscing and reliving of old experiences. We had talked till I fell asleep.

At 6:45 on Sunday morning, I left to take a ride to Kandivali where my parents now lived. I had expected to experience the serenity and peace of early Sunday mornings as I remembered them – People strolling along the promenade on Carter Road, others walking to the temple or church dressed in their Sunday best. Mostly just peace and quiet as most of the population slept in after a late Saturday night.

Instead, I encountered a few maids walking large Alsatians. I gingerly avoided the little mounds of dog poop and flagged down a rickshaw. The air was still and very stale. No fresh dew, no soft gentle morning breeze. The smell kept getting worse and by the time I reached the nallah in Andheri, I realized that there was very little about Mumbai that was pretty or orderly. It was just dirty, unkempt and run down, and that ideal city that I carried in my heart – that was just a figment of my imagination.

I think I still love that imaginary city. And I think I shall keep looking for it in Mumbai and every other place I go to.

But BOMBAY- Aas! It is no more.