So today I complete three months in Bombay -- make that THE Bombay. It is so different a state of mind to any other place in India that when they say you become one with the crowd irrespective of the individuality you desperately hold on to, damn, they couldn't be more right. If you have lived in Delhi, Chennai, Bangalore, Calcutta, Gwalior, Indore, or any other Indian city you would follow the same rules of living in each of those, albeit at different scales. Bombay? No, sir. The idiom of survival in Bombay is all its own. It does not cater to, bow before or dip into any leeways.
The positives. It's a remarkably efficient city. It might rain cats and dogs but people go about their business. Trains ply, buses run, streets are as packed as when it's bright and sunny. No excuses please, we are Mumbaikars. This also makes it a city driven by commerce. Got money? Will work. It is impossible to not find anything in Bombay. No other city in India is as enterprising and as remarkably proud about its spirit as Bombay.
So much commerce, so much hankering after constructing a life. All good, huh? Hey, where is the time for subtlety, nuance, dialogue? Bombay is culturally dead. I don't mean art events and film festivals -- there are plenty of those. But try and initiate decent conversation with the person next to you in the local (train) and you'd sooner drop dead. Literate people, supposedly educated people, smartly dressed people, perfect-accent people -- in any other city, such would hold their own in a conversation about art and politics. Bombay? Here we are cutely clueless. Or, ponderously pigheaded. Take your pick!
Bombay tests you. It asks of you to share in its humanity until you become the lowest common denominator in its deservedly elevated sense of self. The LCD in Bombay is itself charming enough, and hallowed enough, to survive a lifetime. You live, merging with the crowd, happy that you are one with the vast sea of people in this metropolis. Never mind your brain goes potty and you become progressively insipid.
Hah!
PS An American friend says he feels the same for New York.
The positives. It's a remarkably efficient city. It might rain cats and dogs but people go about their business. Trains ply, buses run, streets are as packed as when it's bright and sunny. No excuses please, we are Mumbaikars. This also makes it a city driven by commerce. Got money? Will work. It is impossible to not find anything in Bombay. No other city in India is as enterprising and as remarkably proud about its spirit as Bombay.
So much commerce, so much hankering after constructing a life. All good, huh? Hey, where is the time for subtlety, nuance, dialogue? Bombay is culturally dead. I don't mean art events and film festivals -- there are plenty of those. But try and initiate decent conversation with the person next to you in the local (train) and you'd sooner drop dead. Literate people, supposedly educated people, smartly dressed people, perfect-accent people -- in any other city, such would hold their own in a conversation about art and politics. Bombay? Here we are cutely clueless. Or, ponderously pigheaded. Take your pick!
Bombay tests you. It asks of you to share in its humanity until you become the lowest common denominator in its deservedly elevated sense of self. The LCD in Bombay is itself charming enough, and hallowed enough, to survive a lifetime. You live, merging with the crowd, happy that you are one with the vast sea of people in this metropolis. Never mind your brain goes potty and you become progressively insipid.
Hah!
PS An American friend says he feels the same for New York.
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