Bombay, Zara Bachke
Rude city? You bet, says Mumbaikar Jerry Pinto in defence of
a metropolis too busy to mind its manners but always ready to help when trouble
comes
Yes, we are rude. We are almost always rude. Cities are
always rude. We are the only city in the country. Delhi is a bunch of villages
held together by politics and a few nice roads.
Reader's Digest, which interests itself in these things,
tells us that Mumbai is the rudest city in the world. This is also the magazine
that carried a story saying that global warming might be good for us. I swear,
they did this in May, when my cousins in Nagpur were reporting that the city was
burning up at 52 degrees centigrade.
I come not to praise Mumbai, however. I come to ask whether
the R!eader's Digest editors really mean it when they say that New York is the
politest city in the world? What is it to be polite? In London, a terribly
polite city by my experience, a young woman refused to lend her scarf to be used
as a tourniquet when a man was stabbed on the bus. He bled to death. I am sure,
the young woman said, "I'm sorry but it's an expensive scarf." The person who
asked for the scarf probably said, "Right. Cheers." Meanwhile, the blood pulsed
on from the dying man's neck.
In Mumbai, my mother once was forced to go to a public
hospital with a torn-up leg. In front of her, the poor waited in the way that
the poor wait, endlessly, patiently, quietly. When she joined the line, they all
assessed their need, assessed hers and stepped out of the way wordlessly. She
went to the top of the line, protesting quietly all the way. She did not bleed
to death. Perhaps, she even forgot to thank all those people. Perhaps, they did
not expect to be thanked. But since no one seems to have bothered about
definitions, let's dump them too. Perhaps it is polite to be a city like New
York where all the shop assistants say thank you and please and the doormen are
ready to open the door for you but there are 55,000 violent crimes a year. And
that represents a 10-year low. Perhaps Mumbai with its 122 murders in six months
must be significantly ruder but less lethal.
But are we rude?Sudhir Mishra, Filmmaker" My dominant image
for Mumbai. I'm standing outside Mahalaxmi railway station, it starts to rain. A
man comes out with an umbrella and starts to walk away. He notices another man
getting wet, he pauses, and in an unspoken way invites him under the umbrella.
Then they see me, and I get under as well. That's Bombay. Three men sharing an
umbrella, all getting wet. There's less space under the umbrella now — too many
people, too little infrastructure, but people are still sharing it. "
Yes, we are rude. We are almost always rude. Cities are
always rude. We are the only city in the country. Delhi is a bunch of villages
held together by the politics of power and some nice roads. Chennai is a
self-satisfied town which wants to be known for its culture. Bangalore looked
like it might well grow up to be a city but now that it's got the opportunity to
do it, it's choking itself to death. Calcutta had its moment of glory in the
19th century when they built lots of mansions and factories and set up the kind
of intellectual atmosphere of a Cambridge debating society. Then they lost it,
the Bangla babus and settled into making funny kurtas for their men to wear and
selling Bankuda horses to the rest of the country.
Yes, we are rude. We don't have time for that. We're too busy
dragging the rest of you into some semblance of wealth. We're too busy earning
the money that runs the country. We're too busy paying for the Delhi and Kolkata
Metros. We're too busy earning the money to pay the 75 percent of the income tax
paid by the country. In Kolkata, they don't earn money. In Bangalore, they know
how to hide it cyberwise. In Delhi, everyone's a farmer with agricultural income
that's tax free.
Sarayu Srivastava, Writer " I think of Mumbai as a very cold
but sensuous woman — it all depends on how you warm her up. In this city every
kindness begets more kindness. Delhi's eyes literally undress you. Mumbai sees
you first as a person then a woman. People do tend to keep their distance here,
but if you try and do something nice, a sudden sensitive humanness peeps out.
It's hardship city — it gets by on humour. "
Land-starved Mumbai? The 14 million of us, we dream of the
kind of space that young couples have in Delhi. We'd like a barsati too. We
won't get it. But we'll work hard at it. The shop assistant who doesn't thank
you probably goes home to his 'side business' and puts in another two or three
hours. This could be anything from making papads to selling insurance to giving
private tuition. It leaves him with very little time or inclination to say thank
you. But when trouble comes, he will do what he can.
In the cataclysmic floods of last year, the average person
did what the government could not. They threw open their homes. They left the
security of dry land and waded into the water to rescue children. They formed
human chains to take people off the buses. They made tea and snacks and gave it
to people. Contrast that to the way Americans behaved when Hurricane Katrina
struck. People went on the rampage. They shot at each other, even at their
rescuers. They assaulted each other. They looted abandoned homes. In Mumbai, no
violence was reported. No violence happened. Ask me, I walked home. Ask my
sister, she walked home too. Together, we covered a distance of 30 kilometres
that day and we only saw people helping each other, people offering support and
solidarity.
Milind Deora, Politician "My idea of Bombay? A waiter serving
in the Taj — during the day he might be serving Bill Gates and he'll carry
himself with aplomb, be as cosmopolitan as anyone. At night he'll be taking the
train to Dharavi, return to his slum, put on his lungi and baniyan, help his old
parents, help wash dishes, and watch TV. You can be everything at the same time
in Bombay. It's like that old Sinatra song — if you can make it here, you can
make it anywhere. "
One of the most compelling images in Suketu Mehta's essay
which Naresh Fernandes and I included in our anthology, Bombay Meri Jaan:
Writings on Mumbai (Penguin India, 2003) … but read on:
If you are late for work in Bombay, and reach the station just as the train is
leaving the platform, you can run up to the packed compartments and you will
find many hands stretching out to grab you on board, unfolding outward from the
train like petals. As you ru! n alongside you will be picked up, and some tiny
space will be made f or your feet on the edge of the open doorway. The rest is
up to you; you will probably have to hang on the door frame with your
fingertips, being careful not to lean out too far lest you get decapitated by a
pole placed too close to the tracks. But consider what has happened. Your fellow
passengers, already packed tighter than cattle are legally allowed to be, their
shirts already drenched in sweat in the badly ventilated compartment, having
stood like this for hours, retain an empathy for you, know that you boss might
yell at you or cut your pay if you miss this train, and will make space where
none exists, to take one more person with them. And at the moment of contact,
they do not know if the hand that is reaching theirs belongs to a Hindu or
Muslim or Christian or Brahmin or untouchable or whether you were born in the
city or arrived only this morning or whether you live in Malabar Hill or
Jogeshwari; whether you are from Bombay or Mumbai or New York. All they know is
that you're trying to get to the city of gold, and that's enough. Come on board,
they say. We'll adjust.
-- And life still goes on
