It is almost a month since I landed in Mumbai- A city of dreams as many call it. I have to admit it was my long standing desire to visit the place and see it for myself. This had developed over the years since my childhood with various bollywood songs on the city "ye hai mumbai nagariya...." "Mumbai se aaya mera dost....." etc. Viral marketing also played its role as many people told different things about Mumbai. As one of them said "First six months you will not like it but if you can survive this time without disliking it you would not want to leave this place" "You can't get in a local train for the first time and even if you could, getting down at the right place is very difficult" and many more. The curiosity was built enough.
As soon as the plane started coming down I tried to peek from the window pressing the person sitting at the window seat, the first look at it makes one thing clear. There are either tall buildings or sprawling 'jhopparpattis'. A sort of contrast which became starker when I actually started watching it more closely from ground. This city generated waves of thoughts in my mind during my stay.
The kind of crowd and rush I saw at this place was unimaginable to me until I saw for myself. The situation which is called packed for a train in many parts of the country is undefined for travelers as they keep pushing and keep entering in the stuffed spaces. The kind of indifference in people's face is amusing. These are not only indifferent faces but also the stressed out fatigued faces. People move like robots in a systemic manner with a very serious look at their faces - be it rich or poor. Barely saw anyone smiling, talking and laughing in the train or stations. It seems some kind of gloom is spread over the city. Something didn't look normal.
One hand, the kind of poverty and hardships of people you see from a local train. Small stuffed places with many people staying, home surrounded with garbage
On the other hand, the tall towers, flats worth crores, malls, Mercedes, BMWs etc.
The major difference between Mumbai and other cities is that the difference is much more apparent here.
I could not ignore the glaring scenes of height of richness and depths of poverty in one sight at so many instances and with so much frequency. There are so many poor people, beggars passing by closely. But people here move so unperturbed and apathetically with the misery around, probably because they have become used to it or because they don't have time in this fast paced life of the city to stop, look around and ponder.
This forces the thought-where are we heading as a society. Are so many of our society members so bad that they don't deserve even a humane living standard in front of super gifted/talented millionaires who get all possible comforts of life?
Few other issues in the city are lack of space for one to take a walk with the family, children to play and other multitudes of problems which can be associated to the poor plan of city and overpopulation. A look at a love spot (bandstand) in the city indicates that even the couples seem to love each other fast thinking they might not get the time or space later!!
Definitely, a city of dreams -dreams which trigger dissatisfaction at what you have, dreams which trigger unhappiness, dreams which are endless, then a tiny fraction of dreams which actually gets fulfilled.
However, there is a positive side of the city.
The sheer variety of people from different cultures, states or faiths is amazing. May be this is the recipe which helps creativity foster in terms of lyrics, paintings, movies etc.
In terms of safety and treatment of women, the city is much better than our 'National Capital Region'. Even though women are more liberally dressed, eve teasing incidents are much lesser. Given the kind of population density (you get to understand the literal meaning of the word) and the severe infrastructure issues the city is moving and growing, that's Incredible.
