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Why Bombay?

I had no business whatsoever lodging in Bombay for a fortnight during last Autumn 2009. No meetings, or assignments, and definitely none of what the providential visitor would religiously ensure – sight-seeing, filming ‘Dabbawalas’,  starry-eyed film studio tours, even camping outside ‘Pratiksha’ waiting to catch a providential glimpse of Silver Screen Shahenshah -  Amitabh Bachchan and getting oneself photographed outside a beautiful house named ‘Mannat’.

Bombay from a distance always reminded me of something equivocally bizarre with the seemingly ambivalent and unusual co-existence of the Business Headquarters of India along with a Mega Film Industry. While the former runs on prudence, the other interprets dreams.

Entire library racks have got surfeited by hefty literature about ‘outlandish’ Bombay and an ‘out-land’ it is literally – given its micro-peninsular isolation from Mainland India, which also endowed it with its conceited attitude. But then I had a lot to introspect about Bombay, in spite of being the reclusive somebody belonging to the ubiquitous genre lacking the Political, Academic or Literal prowess of Naipaul, Amartya Sen, Shashi Tharoor and the likes? Somebody whom the society brands to be the insignificant spectator of what those personages write/speak/tweet.

This is the first ever opportunity I am getting to write about it. What a ‘Glaring Liberty’, isn’t it?

Yes Bombay (and not Mumbai)  for me was a city where 38 years ago my father started his career and gets me instinctively driven to experience & gather whatever of that 70’s epoch is remaining of this mega-metro.

The 70’s Primer

By the time I was born, the 70’s era was on the verge of getting over. All that was left for me to see were the ‘ashes’. Perhaps Bombay being the Business Capital of India, always pioneered earliest the capitalist splurges and luxuries that was the disdained religion of Socialistic India. Even after 30 limping years since independence, our Government was tranquilly confused whether to tag along the Americans or the Soviets. For some reason however, this inclination was slightly more towards the Soviets because of their ‘Outmoded Largesse’. Thanks to Chacha Nehru’s vision and dream of a socialistic state, which was so ironic in reality that the Bollywood Movies cashed in by producing Movies like Mother India, Do Beegha Zameen and later ‘Deewar’.

Bombay Life in the 70’s may have been ‘licensed’ but not under-estimable, especially the luxuries were obtainable – the so called ‘good things in life’ were ‘imported’. The movies of that era are reminiscent to clear the doubts.

Film Industry, Amitabh Bachchan and the 70’s

Bombay undeniably is the talent magnet especially for the factual and lesser known India, of not just the ‘Conformist Professional’ category but also of masters in ‘Performing Arts’. First Day/First Show at Bombay and just looking at the audience at Prithvi Theatre makes you realize what power this city has, to capture talent from far & wide. Yes the Monologue Play was commendable too and I must thank actor ‘Joy Sengupta’ who played host to me there. I saw him in person after some 23 Years.

Film Production are events with very short lifecycles like those festival or marriage ceremonies and Bollywood and its glitter have been mesmerizing the deprived Indian populace for generations with its larger than life image. It is all about fate – The classic – ‘Arrived at VT Station with a tenner’ fables that describe how one catapulted to stardom one day. Though the craze withers over time for most making their prominence nosedive and forgotten to a seldom surfacing anonymity. Such is the ‘rags to riches to obscurity’ pragmatism that Bombay encapsulates within its myriad purloins.

I have high regards and admiration for Amitabh Bachchan. Something no different from the millions of fellow Indians and I am very sure many are incapable of doing a prudent job in writing an article about him. This is not a Film Industry Article either, isn’t it?

I have somehow always sensed an abstract synonymy that he and my father shared. Howsoever petite it may be, but stout enough to make me transcribe this. To begin with, there is a close match in their age and the times when they started their career in Bombay.

But neither my father was the angry young man nor did he get involved into hi-speed  ‘Chevrolet Muscle Cars Chase’ pinning down bands of bellbottom donning smugglers singlehandedly and nor he had a Rekha fixation. Yet both had humble beginnings during the early 70’s Bombay and have had their share of struggle, of which the analogous lines marking both their face reveal its tell-tale signs. The only disparaging distinction here is that one out of the two was a Movie-Superstar with the stifling veracity that is – Both Life’s struggle and Stardom has its recompenses and toll.

Bombay – India’s retort to New York and the Urban Sprawl

Bombay is a city where even the very space that one occupies to stand is priced upwards of a capital value of no less than INR 10,000 per sft and more depending on the how prime the location is. Even then, Bombay has been the most successful to be able to demarcate the rich/poor divide among all other cities.

I have severally quoted – ‘Cities shape attitudes’ and Mumbai proves to be a strong illustration. Tie your shoelaces on some busy Kolkata street for a more than usual time and the ever-inquisitive passerby stops on their tracks, suspecting you to be planting a landmine or something. A shade overtly exaggerated this one may be a bit, but then to drive the point home, I am sure you will commend that Bombay indeed is one of those cities where people really mind their own business.

One of the major distinctive characteristics about Bombay apart from its quarantined stature is its dispersed municipal localities. I miss the radial arrangements of archetypal cities where the business districts, suburbs and satellite townships, bind micro-geographies together. In Bombay however things are located like on a tattered newspaper.

The long and wide roads, ramps and expressways zapping and curving in long angles, are somewhat symbolic of the opportunities that are herein. The decisive trial is – ‘which ramp to take?’ which ultimately resolves ones fate with a straightforward affirmative or adversative consequence.

“Bombay – the city that never sleeps” >> Corrected to “Bombay – the city that sleeps less”.

I was perched up on a Balcony Railing one lazy Bombay evening at Juhu, overhearing ‘oomphs and aahs’ from the apartment next to mine, only to discover that instead of somebody’s steamy orgasm, it was the unemployed rot-whiffing couch potato who was blissfully watching ‘Namaste Yoga’ and still vivacious even after all the swearing, karaoking and lip-syncing during the entire day of his Television Nirvana.

Last year, some 1 am at Bandra Seaside Bombay, One ‘lost appearing’ mid 40′s something Drunk Gentleman came up to me and mumbled. “do you know where is Rekha’s house located?” as if he had a dinner date with her and we were her neighborhood loafers. The poor 70’s soul apparently visited there just for that. I term him as ‘Insanely Rekhafied’.

After night-cruising Bombay, I conclude that no Indian City has truly got a ‘Night Life’ with major establishments at Bombay found ‘closed’ after 11 a.m. After all, when was a can of Coke available at SBI ATMs?