Dream on Mumbaikar

When you first land in the city, the first thing that happens to you is all your senses get activated in one go! You feel the salt in the humid sea breeze; the fishy smell that the real Mumbaikars don’t even acknowledge because its so omnipresent to them. In one blink, your sight will capture a dozen of things happening simultaneously. Sounds of all possible volumes, and when I say volumes, I mean the Indian-loud volumes! There are traffic jams, slower than you would have ever experienced anywhere in India (well Bangalore can compete too). But almost a kind of traffic that will tire you before you even reach your destination and make your ears function in a way that nothing else has ever before. That’s Mumbai for your senses.

When I was brand new to Bombay a friend told me, in Mumbai everyone is always in a hurry. I wondered what the reason was. When I became a Mumbaikar, I was also always in a hurry. And the day I realized the reason, I almost felt like the new age Einstein. It was the size of Mumbai that made people always in a hurry. Mumbai is a hugely spread out city with work centers that are inevitably far from ones home. Murphy’s law applies to everyone’s life. Wherever you live, your work place will be in the furthest corner from there – Murphy’s Mumbai law. It could be the uber cool town-side (USA people, that’s our version of downtown), the ever-germinating Parel-Dader and the mighty Andheri (mighty because Andheri East & West combined I think would be larger than any average town of India). People travel across the lengths & breadths of the city for work. And hence they are always in a hurry to keep their travel time to the least possible. A graphic designer uncle who lives in Mira road, has to run & cross the Dadar bridge every day to ensure he catches his 6.15pm Virar local only because he got traffic on the road while coming to the station. And roads are narrow, dug-up, have an absolute random religious procession passing, bhaji wali taai and dosa wale anna, an old Fiat taxi has broken down or a fat Parsi aunty is getting off from her car in the middle of the road. Reasons can be numerous, and you will be surprised, every time there’s a new reason for the traffic snarl. Oh by the way, for the Delhi me, what truly surprised me was how can the traffic stop because of pedestrians! Try crossing a Delhi road on a green signal; you will be amazed to meet God the very next second. But in Mumbai, pedestrians are the king of the road! They raise their hand in a gesture to show stop sign to the driver and cross almost blindly after that. It totally amazed me that what was the need to show the hand to stop, if the driver couldn’t see the big you, how would he see that small hand of yours. And you know this is something so similar to USA, in obviously in a very different way similar! In USA, Pedestrians are kings where they are supposed to be or have markings for pedestrians. So when Americans cross the road, they also raise their hand to the driver, not for stop signal, but as a polite thankful gesture of acknowledgement for they stopped and let you pass by. But no, Mumbaikars do not have time for all of that. Mumbaikars would rather walk 4 steps more than stop by and wave someone in gratitude.

So far so bad, right? You would think, man is Mumbai really all that bad? Yes and No. Yes its one of the worst cities you could imagine in your first year of being here. You would want to run back to your city every single day for the first year but then, slowly, like really slowly, it captivates you. It makes you its own. Before you even realize you pick on the fast walking pace, the Mumbaikar language, the stench of the fish becomes familiar to you, you do not sweat profusely in humidity like you did in your initial days and the flooded roads during the rains appear to you as a daily dose of adventure. But after your first year, it’s the only city you would want to live in India. However bad it is, you will love it like no other place.

Mumbai is a city with all sorts of people. If there is a breed of Indians, you will find them here! If concoction was a word invented by some Indian, I know he did it for Mumbai. All my Delhi life, I never had friends who were from states other than UP, Haryana and Punjab. And here! OMG!

Maharashtrians are very very culturally rich people, Gujaratis are very very business minded people, South Indians (AP,KA,TN & KL respectively) are very very religious people, North Indians are very very hardworking people, Jains, Parsis, Marwaris & Bengalis are very harmonious people. And all these varieties of people, you can find in just one single society building, anywhere in Mumbai. All of them here to earn their dream, work their way up the ladder and strive for a better life. It’s a beautifully warm and independent city that will make you feel loved in its own weird way. Whatever age or state or religion or class you are, you will find a place to eat, a place to enjoy, a sea face to unwind and a huge group of people who make you feel belonged. Every person who comes to Mumbai, slowly and steadily finds his niche here, a group, a place, a being that is so them! If you have never liked dressing up, you will totally find a group that couldn’t care less. If you were a biker in Hyderabad, you will find a biking club here that drives through the ghats every weekend. An introvert bookworm will find a perfect place at the joggers park bench, a homemaker aunty will find a similar confidante in another middle-of-the-day-Nighty-clad aunty. With so so many vast variety of people, you will find your place, a place that you will love so much for its independence and binding rules, and love it more for being like the home that you have left behind and come. If you are a Girl from Jaipur here to work in an MNC bank, be assured, you will find a Madoo friend (Bombay lingo for Marwari) whose mom will send you gvaar ki sabzi made just the way your mom does and you will instantly connect. And while you travel back after a late night at work, you will be stuck in a bad traffic at 11 in the night and you will not be able to explain to your parents screeching on the phone, that how safe you are(well traffic jams are safe right, who possibly would want to abduct you when not a soul can escape). You will find a loud Maharashtrian maushi in the local train whom you will totally smirk at, but if a guy by mistake also boards that ladies compartment, that maushi will make sure hell breaks loose on him. That Goan uncle who took the cab that you first waved at, will stop and question you, Bandra? And you will first find it so weird to travel with a total stranger, and then eventually feel totally safe while he sits in the front with the driver and makes you comfortably sit at the back seat. In the end of the journey when you share the cab fare and polite smiles, you realize we all are genuine people, though in our own rush. But then, this is how Mumbai is, different, and genuine!

A Mumbaikar’s Mumbai is not about seeing celebrity bungalows and zipping through marine drive, this is a Mumbaikar’s Mumbai. A city which inevitably tires you every day. But also, a city that keeps the zest in you pumping. Because every time you sit at a sea face and see the houses behind you, your adrenaline surges, and you promise to yourself, I will work so hard, that one day, I will own the one right over there. And that’s the point in time, you will know, that while Mumbai accepted you the day you landed here, today is the day you have accepted Mumbai! The city of countless peoples’ countless dreams is now your city of dreams too. So dream on Mumbaikar and the rest of Indians, dream on to atleast once, experience living in Mumbai.