The city, firmly decides to return to normal despite the gloom

My husband and I decided to visit the ravaged part of the city. That was not strange: because even before we knew each other, we knew the city. Especially that part of it, that got so hit badly. And even before we chose each other, and perhaps often wondered at that:) we had chosen this city and never wondered at this -- because it is such a special city.

So, when we went back, my husband wore a national flag on his chest... I looked for national flags in several shops --those tiny paper ones, but no shop had any ready stock... so he pinned a plastic one on.

So, when we landed, the parking lot off Jehangir Art Gallery was empty: uncommon for the heart of Mumbai. The Colaba Causeway looked deserted. The hawkers had vamoosed (we learnt later the cops had warned them against setting up the shops since the 48 hour after a terrorist strike is crucial). Some brave shops had opened, and were offering discounts... and discussions and debates on the hottest topic at hand -- how they personally escaped by a whisker and who was the most corrupt in the establishment under fire ...

Cafe Mondegar, the iconic cafe close to Leopald Cafe which got mauled by the terrorists, was packed to its gill... Single women (where else in this country, but Mumbai, can a woman sit down to a meal alone?) attacking their omelets, browsing paper. Murals byMario Miranda, Mumbai's own beloved cartoonist (who has now chosen home territory Goa) (u can see one section of the mural on my sidebar) grinning down at the patrons; old, seventies music blaring from the juke box even more defiantly over the redolence of beer, smelling strange without the accompanying waft of cigarette smoke (banned in public places:), and tandoori mushrooms soft and succulent. We sat and soaked up the resolute manner in which Mumbaikars had decided to say they were unafraid ... This statement had no class, or regional texture: the crowd at the cafe was rich, poor, middle-class, young and old. Mumbai has its own language....a lexicon that only it understands. No wonder, some silly twerp of a journalist from Delhi can assume, snootily, that candle-light vigil is a socialite statement or an impotent defiance. You must know the idiom of the city to understand why it is always, despite its filth, compared to New York. It has such resolute strength, an expansive heart, a soothing multi-ethnicity that is accepting, non-judgemental that it simply undefinable but palpable.... and loved fiercely...

So, we wandered, nothing to see, as the crowds began to thicken -- all classes of people, from everywhere, slowly began to crowd in. School kids holding placards, seniors too:) Outside Jehangir Art Gallery, people getting their portraits done by rather talented artists without marketting skills or savvy to make it anywhere else... Rs 50 Buddha, smiling peace in this wicked world. Or Buddha in metal wires (designed with simple elegance, Rs 100) ; or you can chose to make you statement by buying a vada pav near the Sulabh toilet, chosing it over the urine smell. Mumbai, and its strong smells ... Outside Leopold a huge crowd. Media mela and the gawking crowds. But the cafe reopened in the evening, again defiant...
Shop-keepers let their guards down, discussing the night of terror, sharing information -- so that we were all reaching out, in the way Mumbai has, that is rather inexplicable ....And that can infect positively any one who loves the city... So that he or she stops being any other identity but that which Mumbai confers... which is that, of a Mumbaikar.

At an art gallery, where large boards said our bags will be checked, nobody bothered to peep into our hand bags!! The horse carriages (which bother the animal right activists so much) were also back on the roads, which began to thicken with traffic ... Crowds back again at people's favorite hang out here -- the fly overs (Yes, unbelievable but true, but this is one of the most fav hang-outs for a Mumbaikar -- the smoke, the traffic, the noise, and the privacy that a crowd affords -- as a journalist I always wanted to do a photo-feature on this one); unabashed lovers back at the sea front... But most of the crowds were heading towards Colaba... People not used to this city will call them gawkers.
But we -- who live here and love her -- would say, those that who cared and wished to show we were unafraid and that we will stand united -- were all there....

Todays' snapshot:
Some more things that stand out from the terrible events. Some questions that is bothering me:

• Two important TV Channels behaving like policitians they condemn. One TV channel sniggers, continuously, about people (socialites, it says, with a nasty, biting lash) who are holding candles to demonstrate solidarity... It continues, throughout its debate, on this gesture of candle holding ... And I could see where that was coming from, this nastiness: so I wished to say, `Shut Up' ! ... Because though I liked your coverage a lot, I think you were behaving just like those grand-standing politicians. You were not attacking the `socialites' but your rival channel. And that was cheap: because a lot of people who held the candle that night were not all there for the limelight -- that is a cheap assessment from you -- a moral judgement that you as TV anchor were not entitled to make....
• I wonder how after the terrorist hijacked a CG vessel, nobody in the concerned departments caught on to the fact... You would think an alert would have been sounded if you lost contact with one of your vessels? No radio contact?
  
• Or, since I do not have the details, let us assume that the terrorists maintained a false contact with the CG control through the navigator, whom they later killed. In a hijack case, you would think the CG would have a code that the navigator could have used to alert them of this danger... Was such a thing in place...? Even debit cards have these codes now, that you can punc in when a robber tries to make you use it, at gunpoint....
  
• I remember reading that after the mobile contact with Sabina Sehgal (TOI journalist) was lost for seven hours, it was tracked to Raigad. What is the meaning of that sentence? No journalist finds it worth to check that it? That small sentence has been worrying me a lot....
  

Why this hurts...

When I first came to Mumbai, I was a student at the Max Mueller Bhavan German Institute, Pune, doing a scholarship course. I had no money. Since MMB gave a first class ticket fare amount, I bought a second class and kept the rest for any luxuries, including weekend eating (when we did not get any hostel food, so we had to spend from our own pocket). My sweaters had been bought for ten bucks each, second hand, from Delhi's pavements. So they looked sleek, rich-discard. So with no money, and to visit a big city like Mumbai?

My friend Anita Agarwal, from Chandigarh, and I decided to go up to Dadar, sleep on the pavement (or the station waiting room, if allowed) and wander about the city. That way we could save on accomodation. So that is what we did, sitting most of the night on the station chairs, feeling a bit nervous as cops eyed us (we did not quite like whores, so what were we doing, they must have wondered:) and then, bravely tried to visit the waiting room (toilets, clean, shower and wash, brushing teeth -- sheer heaven). Then went out into that merry havoc that is Mumbai. Right into the heart of the Dadar station, its hawkers. We went crazy. I bought pink shoes for twenty bucks (never wore it, but it meant something to me!!!).
Ate dosa off the pavement, licked our fingers. Then, to `tour the city', took a BEST bus, a double decker -- I have never seen one in all my life, and then to sit inside one!! My first exposure to Mumbai was a Sunday -- so I always remember it, empty, full of a latent, coiled energy. The buildings grey, rain-washed, moss-tinged, and saltwind-worn (depressing for one from Chennai where even a poor fellow like my dad bought white wash -- simple lime -- to colour the building facade every year. The year after my dad's death I did the same. But since I could not afford the painter to do the inside, did the entire bungalow in a span of four back-breaking days:)

And I loved the city: I had such a sense of freedom that nobody ever gave me. Here I was poor, with a dream and my own Chennai never gave me a hint of promise I could ever reach it. But in Mumbai, I knew I could hit on my dream, and it would be part of my enduring romance with life. So, when later on in life, I was asked which city I wanted to train in, I said Mumbai -- though that meant so much of logistical maneovring that it could have made no sense, being a pauper tha I was. But I came here, since it was the love of my life. A city that freed me.

Lately however I had seriously begun thinking of going somewhere else, since the city has become different from what I knew. And loved. And that was even before these terrible nights....

Resilient city?

Every time there is a crisis in the city -- floods, terror hits, riots, or riot-like situations (belligerent policitics) -- everybody from around the nation, sometimes the world, salute the famous Mumbai spirit.
But while the city bounces with gung ho, you wonder whether it is only the citizens who are resilient. And whether the rest of it gets away with anything just because we, as citizens are strong. I recall that when a fire happened in my house, ordinary residents and simple village boy-security guards saved the devastation from spreading further. The groups meant to protect us let us rather down. Fire engine came 45 mins late, claiming they lost their way and nobody could give them proper direction.
The building security guard chief, whose salary is going out of my pocket, said he/his men were trained only to look at the low-lying floors (mine is on the eight floor, though the fire was billowing out of the window for possibly hours, this was his excuse for not sighting it. As if robbers climb up from the lower floors always?!!And he will take them on only if they pass through the main gate?!!).
The Property Manangement's Office had not renewed the fire fighting equipment maintenance contract -- their excuse, the agency was not responding to phone calls!!! So, despite taking up prime space the water pipes did not work as the poor brave guards try to start them. The plumber was sleeping since nobody in the PMO's office thought to wake him. And the water was not released through the pipes (which any case leaked) since there had been no emergency drill in place......So, there was all this nonsense thrown at us: other residents urged us to file a case against the society (which charges a high maintenance charge, as do most suburban complexes which seems to have their own extra constitutional way of running things out here). But we did not, since we were too traumatised by the event, and relieved to be left alone, to carry on our lone task of cleaning up and chasing duplicate documents (passports, kid's birth certificates, investment papers -- all of which were also burned). Which can be the very hell (only the crooks somehow manage to have five passports here!!).Glaring things,then.

Now too, as the city was rocked by the recent terrorist attack, some images/things that stood out in the terrible events that rocked this city...

• A ruling party spokesman rambling on TV to a pointed question on guarding the coast.. He said it is a big coast. (Yes, we know that. But these guys landed under our nosetip -- if that is not protected...!!!). They landed just a few yards off the state police headquarters, close to the city's administrative center, ministerial residences, financial centers, the super-rich residences.... If we could not stop that, sure we have no control over the rest of that sprawling coastline too..Chilling thought...
  
• The doctor couple, battling to save the Taj staffer: the five-star hotel's first aid box did not enough guaze and no painkillers, as the poor man's bowels spilled out.
  
• Simple vendors pushing handcarts with bodies/injured people on them?? Our crisis management...?? They keep saying Disaster management is in place?
  
• Luggage trolleys to carry out injured... Crisis management??
• And though the terrorists had the floor plan of the hotel, the commandos were unable to finetune operation due to lack of it! In movies you see government disaster management cells having the floor plans of important buildings in the city, in computers.. Here such an important hotel which hosts important international events has nothing on hand... what of the rest of the city, which is even more carelessly managed?
  
• A politician entering Nariman House where commando action is still going on. Waving his hand to the crowd..!!
• A (famous) TV journalist, rattling off the fresh casualty figures in a rush, then promptly going back to his brief, on asking a celeb guest if the Taj hotel will ever be the same again...
• Another award-winning female TV journalist holding the arm of a person (whose relation is inside the hotel) for a sound byte: then, following some internal brief, placing her hand on his chest, and firmly pushing him out of the TV frame....
• The crowds milling outside the Nariman House -- and the military trucks having no space to maneouver...
  
• Colaba's streets and its underbelly -- drug dealers/prostitutes operating openly... Petty crime creates a porousness that is clearly a security threat that has not been scrutinised with care. Why, one wonders...
  
• It is not just long coasts or shorelines that make our borders porous. Corruption is also a form of porousness ....
• The other thing that opens our flanks is our own chalta hai attitude..

I chose to live in this city because it has the best heart in the whole world... So since it was the sweetest thing I had known -- person or place -- I could tolerate its filth, its spittoon roads, its traffic jams, its commuters' crush ...
I love it, as if it were a person... And today, my heart weeps ....