We must squeeze the middle-class into action

Mumbai is a city of opportunity, no matter what stratum of society you come from. Yet, it is this very opportunity that causes Mumbaikars the most grief.

People from all over rural (and by rural I don’t mean idyllic) India come to this metropolis to realise their dreams: a few do, for the rest it gradually transmogrifies into a free house and a chance to badger tax-paying citizens.

Almost every traffic signal in the city now comes replete with its own coven of beggars, vagrants and cripples. They buzz around cars and taxicabs hoping to dupe the conscience of some vapid commuter into giving them some money. But what do they do with the money? Mumbai is full of, if nothing else, theories: ‘They spend it on drugs and alcohol’, ‘they actually make as much as Rs2,000 a day, hence prefer begging to manual labour’, ‘they actually use it to buy the necessities to survive in such a harsh environment’.

Mumbai’s upper class very rarely comes into contact with this segment of urban life. Their air-conditioned cars and tinted windows, shield them from such human realities, and hence they can be excused for not giving a damn. It is the middle-class that should be the most harangued by this imposition; they, however, seem to be anything but.

Apart from the beggars and lepers (I’m not even going to mention the eunuchs, a segment of society so pointless, they could disappear and nobody would know the difference), illegal hawkers have take over pavements and walkways, forcing pedestrians into the streets.

The police, allegedly, is hand-in-glove with the hawkers and the alms-requesters, and will do nothing apart from occasionally wield a limp baton in the direction of a stall that has failed to pay up its monthly protection money. Yet the middle-class strolls on, inspired in its indolence.

Change must come from within, and it is time Mumbai reclaimed its streets. I don’t suggest we do so in the blatantly racist and corrupt manner in which Rudy Guilliani reclaimed New York for white New Yorkers. But do something, we must.

The financial middle class — and the rich — must be taxed for every beggar and illegal hawker on Mumbai’s streets. They must pay for their apathy to what is a rapidly deteriorating situation. Hitting Mumbai where it hurts, in their wallets is the best way to get them to begin taking some pride in their city and spur them into action against the mass of illegal activity that dogs our daily life.

Mumbaikars love talking the big talk, it’s high time they started walking the walk too.

Operation Sunrise

Taking over as the head of DNA’s Interactive journalism department (a job I was hired for, but one that has gaily danced away from my perverse clutches) should have been a moment of great rejoicing, and it was, until the pin dropped. The pin in question being the fact that I would now have to report at 11am, rather than the far more agreeable time of 2pm.

Now to many rats that run the proverbial urban rodent marathon, 11am seems hopelessly late to start one’s day, but for the journalist it could very well be the middle of the night.

The timing, however, wasn’t the worst of my worries...that position was reserved for the crowds that I imagined would be buffeting me like a hooker at a stag party.

The first day had dawned and I emerged from the safety of my parents’ flat, neatly framed by the trees that line this scenic street. The sun wasn’t harsh, but it nevertheless made its presence felt in the refracted rays that fought their way through the green canopy.

The walk to the Bus Stop takes about five minutes (or the time it takes to smoke one cigarette) and apart from the looming threat of being run over by a bus, it was rather uneventful.

The bus stop boasted the regular motley bunch of office workers and college students, unfortunately the college girls comprised oily-haired, pasty-faced, 50-pinters, rather than the sought-after buxom, hip-hugging-jeaned variety. But, no matter, the bus duly arrived, and lo and behold, it was empty.

Thanking Zeus’s phenomenal libido I promptly settled into a window seat and perused the latest New Yorker (picked deftly from one of DNA’s saving graces...its great library). People embarked and got off at the various stops that marked the circuitous route from Four Bungalows to the Andheri Railway Station, but not once were there more than five people standing in the bus.

The station itself had the de rigueur bunch of unwashed, tree-hugging Greenpeace activists handing out leaflets about some stupid whale that would be better off on my plate. A simple “Fuck Off” and they were on to the next person with their environmental nonsense.

I was on schedule to catch the 10.32am train that started at Andheri, and already the creeping dread was...well...creeping up on me: the dread of a human wave that would certainly engulf me, when those 12 carriages pulled in.

But the platform lay relatively empty, like a town in the Wild West that had just heard the Baker Boys’ posse was riding down.

The train emerged from the haze conjured by the heat and pollution that rose up from the earth entwined in a macabre dance of warmth and putrefaction. Yet the wave did not break.

As the First Class (it’s only the best for me) bogey approached my anxiety, I found myself a straggler. And then there it was; its vacant doorway gaping at me like a 16-year-old at his first strip show. I stepped in and the seats beckoned with their empty embrace.

I sat down, by the window, and exhaled a breath that had been caught in my chest for a good minute. I had caught the morning train and Moses and the promised many had not materialised. Victory was mine: the little man had triumphed over the thronging behemoth.

“Operation Sunrise has been completed successfully sir,” the voice of my inner Colonel proclaimed.

“Good work son,” I replied in my best rendition of Rommell, “Next stop Paris!”

OK so maybe not Paris, but hell, Elphinstone Road can’t be all that bad

The native despairs

Why did I take the decision to leave Bahrain and head back to Mumbai and India? There were three reasons.

The first being Bahrain’s lack of culture, or rather English-language culture (I have been led to believe that the Arabs have a vibrant performing and visual arts scene).

There is a dearth of bookshops on the island and the few that do exist price themselves out of the reach of the common man. In Mumbai I could guarantee myself a world of books at reasonable rates and ready availability. I could also visit theatres and art galleries, which dot the city.

I am happy to note that in this case my decision has been vindicated.

The second point is people. The diminutiveness of Bahrain meant that one pub crawl and you’d know half the island’s drinking expats, it also meant that people could begin to grate.

Bahrain’s expatriate community (be they Britons, Americans, Indians or Filipinos) is not known for its intellectuality and mundane conversation takes centre-stage with alarming regularity. In Mumbai I hoped to find exciting conversation and prodigious intelligence. I was wrong.

I have always believed in my amorality, although as I have grown older a large swarm of nihilistic bees have invaded my bonnet. In Bahrain, morals are discarded like used condoms; expats live the depraved life (or try their level best to) and the social judges hide their faces.

For all my intellectual elitism I have realised that on the island we formed a bond in our moral anarchy, and even though we didn’t spend evenings discussing Proust and Liebniz we were amassing life experience by the pint-full.

Men and women swapped tales as they did fluids...with an ease that came from familiarity. The barriers were smashed and the speed of descent into a carnal heaven became our totem.

Mumbai is different: conservatism rules the day and the youth have little or no experience outside the box of religious and social dogma. So while one can easily find someone with whom to expound on Cartesian geometry and Empiricism, you’d be hard-pressed to find a loose-moralled, non-judgmental person with a lust for life.

One slip into the amoral thought process and the stares are withering. I have managed to keep to myself in order to prevent myself being labeled evil incarnate.

I miss my friends in Bahrain, not out of any love for humanity, but due to a yearning for simpler times, when you could say and do whatever you chose without running the risk of being made a pariah.

The third reason was to further the cause of my journalism career. And in that respect I am happy to add that I have found a newspaper I enjoy reading and working on (I, however, do wonder how long it will be before my trademark predilection for boredom sets in).

And so we come to the most important question of all: did I make the right decision? Yes and no.

Yes because I have a job with a future (in Bahrain the room for professional growth was fast-running out) and it’s good to be back among the books.

No because the city will kill me, if not with its congestion then with its oppressive conservatism, lack of global perspective and at times Neanderthal outlook on life and its issues.

And then there’s the lifestyle change: I have to adapt to moving to a poky house after the large one in Bahrain, and the fact that, contrary to popular belief, money goes a longer way on the desert island.

But the bed has been laid and I intend to sleep in it, for a while at least. If it turns out that I have made a mistake then I have to consider that I might have to sacrifice my career for an easier life and head back to the Mideast (or somewhere else).

If that day comes I will do it rather sheepishly, because when the dust settles the only truth left standing may be that I simply couldn’t hack it in Mumbai. And that’s not something I want on my tombstone.