Mazhi Mumbai...

Prague, a brooding movie released some time back (and created & executed by friends from my alma mater), had a thoughtful tagline, “Men live in cities. Sometimes, cities live in men too.” This makes complete sense. The world is replete with locations that intrigue, attract, delight and enchant. They tend to grow on an interested observer, and indeed get embedded in thought.

I first experienced Mumbai (or Bombay as it was back then) through the tinted lens of Bollywood. It was the city of dreams, where orphaned boys polished shoes at railway stations and grew up to be swaggering overlords of the city’s underworld. It was the city of the Bandra Fast where a bumbling cartoonist fell in love with a gorgeous but slightly wooden daily passenger. It was the city of the thickly accented Parsi couple and their Irani café with red-and-white chequered table cloths. It was a city straddled by gun-toting dons who were above all law and beyond all reasoning. It was the city of the special Bomabiya/Mumbaiya hindi that (unfortunately) has somehow been pigeon-holed as ‘tapori’ hindi. It was the city of the Gateway of India & the Marine Drive, and of Bollywood itself. Above all, it was the city of hope, the fountainhead of opportunity. Life has taken me to live in Mumbai in subsequent years, and I have found out that Mumbai is all this and much, much more.

I have often wondered what endears me (and many others) to this city. After all, Mumbai is known to many for its outlandishly chaotic local trains, unrelenting monsoon rains and crumbling overburdened infrastructure. But Mumbai has grown on me, both inspite and because of these.

The first thing that anybody is bound to notice about Mumbai is its sense of all-pervasive professionalism. Walk into a train station at 1’o clock at night or 4’o clock in the morning (or at anytime in between), and you will find people scurrying to board trains on the way to or back from work. Walk on the footpaths teeming with hawkers and you’ll find everyone cantering with purpose. Take a look at a bus-stop at rush hour and you’ll find people in neat lines waiting for a bus, fidgety but disciplined. In a megapolis where only about 5% of residents reportedly live within 10km of their workplaces, there’s no time for gossip, hanging about and meandering. As they say, you need to flow with Mumbai or be overwhelmed by it. While this cuts both ways, it weaves a never-say-die attitude in the fabric of this city. When blasts ripped apart suburban trains in 2006, train services were restored within just 6 hours. When Kasab & Co laid siege on Mumbai, people didn’t stop going to work. When rains pummel Mumbai every year, trains stop when the platforms get submerged, but not before that. As Bali Brahmbhatt crooned years ago,”raat ko 12 baje din nikalta hai, subah ko 6 baje raat hoti hai…”. What is really interesting, however, is that people endure all of Mumbai’s super-dense-crush-load with a matter-of-fact approach, neither resigned to their fate nor complaining about it. Auto-wallahs, taxi-wallahs, bus drivers and the average Mumbaikar – all patiently brave Mumbai traffic & suburban train madness as if it was part of Moses’ Ten Commandments. It is this gritty approach to life that makes Mumbai a city worth living in.

The city of Mumbai as we know it today didn’t exist until around 175 years ago, when the Hornby Vellard Project joined seven small islands into one landmass. However, the islands themselves (and subsequently the concatenated landmass) have been under the influence of a diverse set of rulers at various points in time – including the Mauryas, the Satvahanas, the Mughals, the Gujarat Sultanate, the Portuguese & the British. Additionally, communities like the Parsis, who came to Gujarat escaping persecution in Iran and subsequently made Bombay one of their homes, have also exerted significant influence on the fabric of this city.

Mumbai’s architecture bears testimony to this multi-layered heritage: from the Kanheri & Mahakali caves (probably) of the Mauryan period and the Haji Ali of the Gujarat Sultanate to the Indo-Saracenic grandeur of the British and the attractive Art Deco buildings of Marine Drive. Buildings like the Victoria Terminus, Gateway of India, GPO, BMC, Rajabai Clock Tower, Flora Fountain, Wilson College and others with their artistic cornices and crafted gargoyles are distinct landmarks of a city which is now getting immersed in the cheek-and-jowl existence of uber-lavish highrises and sprawling slums. Indian architects have also lent their weight on the architecture scene, creating (among others) the classy Art Deco mansions for the original rich classes of Bombay, and the regal Taj Mahal Hotel at Apollo Bunder. Portuguese influence can be witnessed in the form of the charming Mt. Carmel, Mt. Mary & St. Andrews churches at and near Bandra. And then there is the glamourous Marine Drive, gently caressed by the Arabian Sea and (literally & figuratively) a breath of fresh air in the city’s scrunched existence. These landmarks provide undeniable charm to the Maximum City.

Mumbai food benefits immensely from colourful heritage too. Parsi food – patrani machhi, salli boti & berry pulao; and Irani café fare – bun maska, mava cake & Irani chai – are legendary and deeply embedded in the Mumbai cuisine. Malvani cuisine from the beautiful Konkan coast tickles your tastebuds with seafood, cocum sharbat and bhakri. Influence of the Mughals & the Gujarat sultanate enchants in the form of nalli nihari, bheja fry and kulfi falooda. Typical Mumbai fast food like Vada Pav – reportedly invented by a thela vendor at Dadar station; and Pav Bhaji – created out of the need to quickly and effectively cater to the multitudes of mill workers in Bombay; are more popular in Mumbai than a Zinger burger or Maharaja Mac will ever be. As any keen observer will notice, a large percentage of Mumbai restaurants is owned and operated by Kannada folk, which translates to delicious Mysore Masala dosa and onion uttapam. Occidental flavor cannot stay far behind, and numerous bakeries and patisseries have continued to hold on to the British & Portuguese legacy. To sweeten your taste buds are Maharshtra’s very own puran poli, shrikhand, modak and tilgud laddoo. And while you are on the run riding the Mumbai rush-hour, promising to cater to your hunger are the timeless usal pav, missal pav, samosa pav, omellete pav, sheera upma, kanda poha, sabudana vada, thalipith and masala sandwich. All these cuisines have blended smoothly into the cosmopolitan Mumbai melting pot and yet stand out with a character of their own – much like the vegetable chunks in khada pav bhaji.

Mumbai’s reputation of being the city of dreams manifests itself in the form of existential dichotomy which has now come to become common knowledge thanks to movies, documentaries and novels. Homeless men sleep under benches on the Worli seaface while uniformed chauffers walk exotic canines on the pavement. Dolce & Gabbana handbags are made in claustrophobic shanties built on overflowing drains. People park their Mercs at train stations to board local trains on the way to work. Airconditioning units and dish antennas punctuate slums like polka dots. A tarpaulin sheet strung on a boundary wall or an abandoned railway wagon is what many call home in Mumbai while flats worth 10 crores of rupees are bought even before construction work begins on site. Mumbai is home to every conceivable layer of society – from the owner of the Antilia to the owner of a corner of a garbage dump. This layered pastry of a city accommodates it all, albeit grudgingly and painstakingky. And life goes on, like the endless string of local trains at a Mumbai train station.

To brighten up your mood after the previous paragraph, I draw your attention to the promise of tourism and wanderlust that Mumbai offers. Mumbai sits on the shores of the Arabian Sea on one side, and on the edge of the formidable Western Ghats on the other. Both have enough locales to keep your tour calendar busy. Travel south of Mumbai and you have fantastic beaches at Murud, Kashid, Harihareshwar, Anjarle & Ganpatipule. Head north & you can sample the Arabian Sea and quaint countryside at Kelva & Daman. March east and the Ghats open up with locales like Khandala, Matheran, Malshejghat, Karnala and Kamshet. In fact, just sample the Western Ghats anywhere during the monsoons, and you will be greeted by lush greenery, frothy waterfalls and misty valleys – all at a stone’s throw from Mumbai.

In a nutshell, Mumbai is a megapolis that mirrors the complexity of India’s society, culture and development. It is saddled by the obvious problems of modernization, made worse by the fact that it is just a narrow stretch of land jutting out into the sea. But instead of getting burdened by this onerous task, Mumbai chooses to pick up the cudgels and go to war. And has some serious fun while on the job. Every single day. This is what makes Mumbai live inside men & women. At least that’s how I see it.

Siachen

As I dutifully focus on the guard post across the yawning snow, the stove next to me splutters. Tea leaves boil in the all-purpose fauji tin-can. The stove cannot be placed farther, for the beverage will freeze if I don’t drink it straight from the stove. Heavy goggles cover my groggy but alert eyes, lest the glint of the sun on the glacial ice blinds me. The ravenously cold barrel of my automatic weapon weighs against my thickly gloved palms, but it may have to spit fire any moment, or never at all. In this unforgiving and stern lap of Mother Nature, I stand with my brothers to fight the adversary. But there are times when I wonder who the adversary really is. The enemy is most certainly at the gates, but is that the enemy without or within?

The question has confronted me on numerous occasions.

I think of the ambushes, cordon and search operations I routinely do in the valley and the north-east. Generations of residents, pushed to the limits by government apathy and/or political strategy and denied the right to a respectable life, teeter on the brink of insanity. When the law refuses to stand by them, many of them are driven to become what analysts term ‘separatists’. Chaos and carnage ensues, with enough entities ready to fan the smoldering fire. The powers that be are disturbed, and I am called in to ensure “area dominance”. Nobody tells me how to make out a foe from a friend, because nobody knows how to. I am ambushed by the same people I am tasked to protect. I do what I have sworn to do – my job. I thus become the enemy. I patrol the streets knowing that the innocent and the guilty both view me with equal contempt and want me removed. Stray incidents of indiscretion and irrationality from some of my own make things further complicated. Slogans are shouted against me as I put my life on the line to neutralize armed attackers. And I wonder who exactly I am fighting. And if I end up making what is termed as a “supreme sacrifice”, wreaths are placed on my coffin and business goes on as usual.

I think of the flag marches I have done to ensure people don’t kill each other off based on caste, creed, religion, this, that, anything, everything. Power-mongers have quietly arranged for sparks to set the dried timber of poverty and unemployment on fire, have watched voyeuristically from a distance, and have then called me in. Nobody has probably wondered how I, who come from among the same people baying for each other’s blood, have managed to remain unbiased and almost mechanical. But I have, as I must.

I think of the studied lethargy of the governments that has always forced me to work with strained resources and information. Decades are expended in finalizing any major procurement order, and indigenous development projects run decades behind schedule. State-run units work with the smugness of assured monopoly, and even basic equipment like carbines remain in short supply. Coffins are allegedly procured with kickbacks and procured bulletproof jackets are substandard. Indian private manufacturers are shut out, and a Military Industrial Complex remains a pipedream. And I stand out there in the open, knowing that a gun never dies, it just falls silent sometimes.

I think of the dents that are waning away my organization’s reputation for honesty, diligence and ironclad principles. Flag-rank officers have been accused of graft, immorality and irregularities and valuable funds have allegedly been utilized for sprucing up the lifestyles of the top brass. My once unwavering trust in my superior, that he will watch my back while I walk into danger, is now under severe strain.

All this makes a dangerous concoction in my mind. My hands tremble for a brief flash of time. And then I remind myself that I joined this organization because I believed in something and because I wanted to live a life less ordinary. I assure myself that the clouds hovering over my country and my organization are but temporary. And I decide to stand up and be counted. And then I pick up the gun and promise every citizen – Sleep sound, for I will protect you, always.