Sitting by the window on the eleventh floor of my client's office, I stare out at the panoramic view. In front of me stretches out a thin strip of beach behind an even thinner row of trees. It is the world famous Chowpatty. This beach is a strange one. At the first glance you can make out more cars than people. There are even a few cranes (of the mechanical variety, and not of the avian type) dotting the beach. Following this, there is an expansive sea which looks grey even in bright sunlight. Along one side of the sea stand some of the tallest buildings in India. Arnav sitting next to me informs me that that area is Malabar Hills. The monthly rent of a 2 BHK (Bedroom-Hall-Kitchen for the uninitiated) flat there is apparently upwards of 1.5 lakh. That same line of skyscraper extend to my right to become an old respectable residential area. Beyond that you can see the clutter and chaos of the famed slums. This is Mumbai.
Mumbai has always had a place of prominence in my life, though mostly sub-consciously. This, I think, is absolutely understandable when you take into account that the strongest love in my life is for cinema. And in India you cannot be a lover of cinema without a special place Hindi movies (I am not talking of connoisseurs or pseudo intellectuals claiming to love only their Bergmans, Rays and Kurosawas). So along with my obsessive love for Hindi 'picture', grew my association with this city. Strangely enough, till my 24th birthday, the number of nights I would have spent in Mumbai was less than 10. The number of visits was 4.
Even in my final year at business school, when I knew my future city of residence would be either Gurgaon or Mumbai, I had always taken for granted that I would move to Gurgaon. All my day dreams of starting work, having a new apartment, having a car were painted around the dusty landscape of Gurgaon. Mumbai had not even entered the extreme edge of the radar. So when I got a call in early February asking for preferences, I was extremely taken aback when I asked for Mumbai. Although I claim to be a non-believer in such things, it almost seemed like this was destined and some outlandish powers were at work. And that is how I moved to Mumbai.
Everything post that kind of fell in place. I connected with one of my closest school friends who was in Mumbai and was on the lookout for a potential flatmate. We joined forces and decided to share accommodation. My sister got admitted to a college in Mumbai. A lot of my greatest friends from business school were also posted to Mumbai. And my other best friend from school also was in Mumbai doing her PhD. To top it all, I realised that I like rains (a Mumbai specialty, though my personal experiences are from Kolkata) more than the cold (a Delhi feature, and one of its best in my opinion). And so Mumbai became my home.
Mumbai is a strange city. You have sky scrapers, the world's largest slums and some of the oldest colonies all rolled into one. You have Rolls Royce and Porsche plying the street running parallel to the train tracks for local trains, the favoured means of travel for millions of Mumbaikars every day. The street outside the house of India's richest man is wide enough to accommodate only 2 cars. The potholes under the wheels of a CEOs Bentley are of the size of craters on the moon. The crowd outside an actor's house for just a glimpse far exceeds that for a demonstration. And yet it all seems to tie in together somewhere, somehow. And that's how I got engulfed within the city too.
Now let me be clear that my relationship with Mumbai has been far from smooth. I was super impressed at how all taxis and autos went at meter rates and never asked for a penny more (if you are a resident of Bangalore or Delhi you will share my surprise). The drivers were courteous and helpful even. They had infinite patience on crowded roads and road-rage was not very common. But at the same time, they could be infuriating in their refusal to go. I mean, sometimes, they just refuse to go! And usually it has nothing to do with the destination. I have come across cab drivers reading newspapers or chatting with each other but not willing to move. I have seen empty autos that will whiz past at great speeds even as you flail your arms frantically in a bid to make him stop. I have experienced cabs willing to go only if I take a certain route. So this is the first peculiarity that I noticed about Mumbai's public transportation.
The next bump in my relationship with Mumbai has to be its traffic. Two hours on a regular basis just to reach home cannot be a very pleasant experience. And that too when the distance is less than 20 km. That's like 10 kmph. And this is not taking into account the days when it takes 3 hours. And this behaviour on the part of Mumbai leads you to devise interesting travelling strategies- insist on leaving at 5 and finishing the rest of the work at home, if work has kept you till 8 then loiter around longer till around 9-9.30 because roads tend to empty out a bit by then, be on good terms with people leaving near your office so you can drop in and spend the night on a particularly bad day (the corollary to this is carrying a spare set of clothes in your bag), be great friends with colleagues with cars because face it it's always better to wait out a snarl in the comforts of an air conditioned car with good company rather than alone in a taxi and finally the golden rule, be open to the idea of going back to the office and spending the night. The one essential that one has to have to live through these snarls is a sense of humour. Either that or truckloads of money to be able to afford a flat right next door to office and then hope your client site will not be at the other end of town.
But in spite of these hiccoughs, there's a lot to Mumbai to make you smile. Like the panorama from the ceiling length window of my bedroom on the 11th floor. I know some say its only factories. But at night, when the lights come on, it becomes like one of those magical areas and the fire on the chimneys looks like a fire in pitch darkness. And during a particularly rainy day when vision is limited, it feels like being in a mystical land straight out of history books. Or let's say when you take a walk by the beach at 2 am in the morning. There has to be something interesting about that. Or about the infinite nightlife. Or about having Randeep Hooda sitting on the next table to you in a cafe shop. Or being able to sit for six straight hours in Jehangir Art Gallery's coffee shop and spending only a couple of hundred bucks. Or going to watch a play in one of Mumbai's many theatres. Or just spending a lazy afternoon at home with a book or a friend and staring out into nothing with the background music of the rain.
While I know the ride will be rocky, all I can say is that it is one to be looked forward to. Like someone said about something else: Love it or hate it, you cannot ignore it. As the afternoon sun becomes way too strong, I am compelled to draw the blinds across the window. In a moment the view is gone. Yet it is not easy to leave the city behind just with the drawing of the blinds as a cacophony combining the sound of horns, telephones, hawkers and local trains waft in. The city continues to make its presence felt.
P.S.: The reference to Mumbai as the "Maximum City" has been taken from Suketu Mehta's book about the city by the same name. As an aside, the book is a delightful read.
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