The dreaded B word

I read a very nice link on Facebook today on 2611. The author, someone who has come to Mumbai from Calcutta to work, vented her anguish on the year gone by. Here's the link. It's that time of the year when we have all become cynical again. But why not. Nothing has changed since then has it?

There was an interesting reader comment on the same Facebook post which referred to the 'silly debate on Mumbai versus Bombay'.

So here, at the risk of getting stoned and tarred, are my two bits on the subject.

Mumbai will always be Bombay in my heart. That's because I grew up in an era when Mumbai was Bombay, Chennai was Madras, CST was VT, and Myanmar was Burma. And, in case you are wondering, Kolkata is Calcutta to me.

The truth is that Bombay doesn't officially exist anymore. Like it or not, it is Mumbai. And it has been renamed by those who belong to the city. So one can cry for Bombay. Ridicule the change. But Bombay will remain Mumbai. Till it changes again.

Frankly I doubt if the essence of the city has changed with the renaming. It is still a city on the move. A city which doesn't just talk. A city of doers. A city where everyone wants to come to. A city which people hate. Yet love. As the Eagles would say a city you can check out of but can't leave. To the world Mumbai is India. We suffered that when the terrorists attacked us last year. They knew that nothing can give the sort of mileage that Mumbai would.

It is a bit like a woman changing her surname after marriage. The person remains the same. But the documents need to be changed.

Mumbai is the new name of Bombay. And there is no point in using any other name in an official forum. Offical forums would be forms and applications, reports and organised mass media. The Blog space remains personal still and I am not sure if rules apply here.

My argument therefore is that one should refer to Bombay as Mumbai in official forums. There's nothing ideological about it. It is a fact.

One's personal relation with Mumbai is a completely different though. What the Mumbai brigade should understand that most who refer to Mumbai as Bombay do it more out of habit than as an intentional slight on the city or its culture. Politicians who insist on taking their oath in Hindi might have hidden agendas. Not the average Jaikishen who is trying to scrounge his rent for the most expensive hundred square feet in the world while hanging precariously from a local train.

I would compare it with a term of endearment which you might have for your lover which might not be her formal name. Or like calling an old college classmate 'fatty' like in the old days though he is now a trim and fit Mr Arora, MBA Harvard. It is not an insult. It is how you relate to the city. if characters in films and books say Bombay that's because people still do.

And, emotions, can't be doctored or tailored. Nor can art and literature. Ask Goebbels.

So what I am trying to say is that if you want call Mumbai Bombay, remember it is Mumbai now. Get real and don't end up being a lover from the past.

And for those who swear by Mumbai, the city needs a lot more from you than your bashing up those who have used the B word.

There is a hell of a lot that needs to fixed in this city. So let's not get sidetracked and then marvel at the Shanghais and Singapores and Dubais of the world.

Post Script ... I read a nice article by Bhavin Jhankaria of Mumbai Mirror a few weeks back. He made a similar argument. This is the link

Time heals all? A city in denial

I came upon a very well packaged feature on last year's 2611 terror attacks in Times Now today. It's called 'Those who fought for us'. I got hooked onto Times Now during those horrible days when we were all shaken up.The earnest and passionate coverage of Arnab Goswami and his team struck a chord.

Watching the programme set me thinking.

• Qasab's still alive. The Arthur Road Jail road block to keep him safe means that he is till a thorn in the flesh of Mumbaikars. As if reading about his giddiness and pleas for biriyani were not enough to make our blood boil
• The ministers who were sacked after the attacks are back. One in the same post
• The government has been re-elected at the Centre and the State
• While the opposition goes about whacking people for calling Mumbai, Bombay. Pity they didn't try beating up the terrorists who were immigrants to Mumbai too
• Retired cops are probably trying to get book deals by raking up controversy
• While the SRPF Jawans who are protecting the Gateway to Mumbai have to sleep on the footpath
• For many the effects of the attacks are traffic jams in Tulsi Pipe Road thanks to naka bandis. Or the irritation of having to get your cell phone checked at Malls
• While a few have had their lives scarred for ever
• Mumbai's own Bollywood is addressing the issue of terrorist attacks. In New York City.
• And marketing teams have ad campaigns ready to ride the memories of the carnage

Bomb Blasts, Train Blasts, 2611 ... I guess there is still some of the famous 'Spirit of Mumbai' left to wash clean our next wound

Where one city ends and another begins

I am in Kolkata right now.

The 'Coffee House' part of this blog is from Kolkata and its famed addas (chats) of the India Coffee House. The blog was supposed to reflect my part Kolkata part Mumbai identity.

Yet I realised that I have begin to view the city from a tourist or travel writer's eye.

Right from the attempted scams at the airport (tips to load your suitcase by pulling it from your hand or proposing to locate a cab which is in front of you) to rude, disinterested, non change returning, men manning the prepaid counter, the airport loo which was out of a Ramsey horror film and the four men who sat in the front seat of the cab I hired to the cabbie who will charge twenty Rupees extra to take you home and the joy of the Metro Station just opened outside our house and the bewildered attempts to place stations called Mahanayak Uttam Kumar (Tollygunge), Netaji, Masterda Surya Sen (my Bansdroni) and Kobi Nazrul Islam).

So when does a city start becoming a stranger? I have been in Mumbai for ten years now. Another five and I can officially call myself a Mumbaikar apparently. In the process I romanced Mumbai eateries on my food blog, presented papers on it in research conferences on Mumbai and now write on it on the B A's Mumbai Metro Twin too.

Is ten years enough to make a city a memory? While I did live for eighteen years in Calcutta, I was not born there. I moved in when I was eight. My parents weren't born there either.

Calcutta remains the central city for all Bengalis who don't live in Bengal. The mother ship. The lodestar. Our Jerusalem. I am no different.

I guess a city is also made of its people and its memories. I am writing this post on my dad's desk which used to be my study table through school and college. In my room where I navigated through those awkward teen years and hit the twenties with baggage such as Rambo and Juhi Chawla posters. I went to Park Street earlier today where every step brought back million memories. And walking around our building where I moved in when I was ten is a Cinema Paradiso flashback sequence of Durga Pujas and Leo Mattel plastic Mauser guns and Star Trek transmitter made with two match boxes and a rubber band.

Then there is the warm fuzzy feeling of being with family. Discussing and listening to problems and plans and stories from the past and flipping through sepia hued albums... my mother who thinks I have lost weight, have had a nice hair cut and write with a certain 'grandeur' to my grandmother who thinks I have put on weight (!) and then plies me with fish curry and sweets a week after she came out of the hospital. Plans for my grandfather's ninetieth birthday the day after and my little brother who insists on treating us to expensive restaurants.

I guess a city can fade away from our lives as we move on. But its memories and its people never will.

And so I sit at home and think of returning home. Waiting for the caffeine to go out of the system. Brushing away my mom's entreaties to call it a day.

Reporting live from Kargil

0020 hours and heavy bombing begins.
This gives way to intermittent gunfire.
The machine guns are called on and there is not respite.
0200 ack ack begins and goes on for an unprecedented ten minutes.

No conscription hasn't begun in India and I am still at Bandra. But I am either getting old or it was my loudest Diwali at Mumbai last night. As I wright this there was another short round of crackers which went off. 1.30 AM, the day after Diwali.

One explanation could be that our earlier house was at a junction at Bandra and people followed the police rules in the open. We are in a quiet alley here (an unfortunate use of words given the context) and people just took off.

Now I am no Uncle Scrooge. I am all for festivities. Whether I follow them or not is a separate issue. Festive cheer is important in the pressure cooker lives that we lead. But does it have to be at another person's cost. Does Diwali become any less fun if you finish bursting your crackers by dinner time? Is it, as Bryan Adams said, all about waking up the neighbours?

After all we wish each Happy Diwali.

Not Heavy Decibels.

Climate change anyone?

The skies were gloomy and overcast at Mumbai today. Wet. Damp. The odd drizzle. The problem is it's Diwali. And I don't remember Diwali ever being wet.

The audacity of vote

The Maharashtra elections were held yesterday. We got a holiday in Mumbai so that we could vote. Some TV reports said that about 52% of people in Mumbai voted which was up from 45 % from the parliamentary elections here (don't hold me to the numbers, but these are roughly what I remember). My home constituency, Bandra W had the lowest turnout at 42 %. Though the Bollywood Khans and Munnabhais who live here voted. If you dissect these numbers more than actually less than 52 % of those eligible voted. 52 % of those on the voters list voted. But there are many who are eligible who aren't on the list. So as a market researcher would say, one has to apply a correction figure and down weight the numbers.

In English this would mean that actually less than 52% voted.

I voted yesterday. As I did in the recent parliamentary elections. But then I am a migrant from a city where politics is religion and voting is a fact of life.

I learnt from a recent panel discussion on news that you are officially a Mumbaikar only if you have lived in Mumbai for fifteen years. I am in my tenth year and need to figure out where to register. Any suggestions? In the same talk show a custodian of the city said he would be OK if migrants came in with a job and a house to Mumbai. I guess he will be fine with me as I had asked to be transferred to Mumbai years back and had fixed a paying guest accommodation before I came in.

Voting was fairly easy ONCE you got yourself on the voter's list. That took us about two to three years. And it is not as easy as the sarcastic wise guy drinking tea on TV claims.

But once we were on the list we got our voter's slip before the last election. And this time too. Our names were given an interesting spin. But that little detail aside the slip gives you the name of the school where you have to go to vote, the room number (!) where you will vote, the timings, list of documents required... everything short of asking your meal preferences.

So we woke up at twelve. Made a round of coffee shops searching for breakfast. Bought samosas from Punjab Sweets as the coffee shops were shut. Went home home. Made coffee. Had breakfast at one PM (it was a holiday guys), drove down. Found the school. And the room number. Easily. Stood in the queue. Fifteen minutes. Pressed a button. Voted and out.

Now that's as uncomplicated as it gets.

Yes, I know, whom will you vote for, all parties are the same, nothing will happen, etc etc

But you can register a no vote, you can vote for an indy who won't win ... as someone wrote on Facebook yesterday, now that she had voted, she had earned the right to crib and rant through the year.

Voting days are here again

Just picked up our voter's slips from our earlier place. So come Tuesday we will be voting again. The Government holiday on voting day won't see us just goofing off then.

I think I have a hang of who the candidates of the two larger parties here are. I have no idea what their single line promise is. Not because I am not interested. Perhaps because my demog is not important enough for them to reach out too.

Still I would like to know what their stand is on:

• why the tiny lane in front of our house had to be fixed just before the election? And why has it taken a week and still looks more like Baghdad than Bandra?
• stopping a repeat of the great floods and the terrorist attack
• public loos
• an airport befitting the commercial capital of a BRIC country
• traffic jams which get worse by the day
• the various metros...underground and above
• Shivaji's statue, riots over Mumbai vs Bombay and things which people really care

An interesting observation on marketing vehicles. I now live in a Catholic dominant building and got a flyer from the ruling party in English and Hindi. When I crossed the road to get my voter's slip from our house which is in a Muslim dominant complex, I got an Urdu flyer from the same party. And of course my Maharashtrian sounding surname gets me SMSs from the latest saviours of the Marathi Manoos.

Fantastic media planning!