Mumbai Revisited
I have never been to Mumbai but thanks to the media revolution, one doesn’t need to go to any place to understand its people. Mumbai is not the capital of India as such but it is more of a backbone of India in many senses.
There is an old metaphor for Mumbai – the city where motion never ceases. Everything moves relentlessly in Mumbai. All the things that Mumbai is famous for has some form of mobility. Be it the dabbawalas moving with exactitude, or Tendulkar’s bat putting every bowler in this world to shame, or Agarkar’s ball which never shies away from hitting the wickets behind the best batsmen of this world, or the underworld, along and against almost everything, for most part, invisible, or the local train carrying lacks of people with amazing unfussy efficiency. A small strip of land crammed with pressures of a million exploding dreams. People from all over the world come here to move up and in the process keep moving around all the time.
Come rain or riot Mumbaikar moves.
It provides both opportunity and pressure so that it’s people metamorphoses into something better than they were meant to be. It forces to get along because it wants its people to get ahead.
But speed breakers are a part of roads. It is this speed breaker phase that Mumbai has been experiencing for the last 12 months. First the cloud burst last year, then the serial bombs planted strategically at places where it hurts most – it’s ability to move. This is what the terrorists wanted – to disrupt the joyful mobility of the city.
Did they succeed??
Fortunately not. All the city came out of their homes to help the stranded passengers offering to drop them home and taking the injured to hospitals; again putting the city into motion. But this time the much-celebrated spirit of Mumbai is crying for help. The city is experiencing a new emotion – the feeling of helplessness. For the first time they are realizing that being a superhero is not enough. When a city like Mumbai stops, it stops believing in itself.
India wants Mumbai, not only because it is the financial engine that drives our lofty dreams about tomorrow. It needs Mumbai because it is the only place in India where people can outgrow their pasts. It tells us that we can move ahead because of what we have inside us.
There are no limits to which it can be stretched. It is infinite.
I have never been to Mumbai but thanks to the media revolution, one doesn’t need to go to any place to understand its people. Mumbai is not the capital of India as such but it is more of a backbone of India in many senses.
There is an old metaphor for Mumbai – the city where motion never ceases. Everything moves relentlessly in Mumbai. All the things that Mumbai is famous for has some form of mobility. Be it the dabbawalas moving with exactitude, or Tendulkar’s bat putting every bowler in this world to shame, or Agarkar’s ball which never shies away from hitting the wickets behind the best batsmen of this world, or the underworld, along and against almost everything, for most part, invisible, or the local train carrying lacks of people with amazing unfussy efficiency. A small strip of land crammed with pressures of a million exploding dreams. People from all over the world come here to move up and in the process keep moving around all the time.
Come rain or riot Mumbaikar moves.
It provides both opportunity and pressure so that it’s people metamorphoses into something better than they were meant to be. It forces to get along because it wants its people to get ahead.
But speed breakers are a part of roads. It is this speed breaker phase that Mumbai has been experiencing for the last 12 months. First the cloud burst last year, then the serial bombs planted strategically at places where it hurts most – it’s ability to move. This is what the terrorists wanted – to disrupt the joyful mobility of the city.
Did they succeed??
Fortunately not. All the city came out of their homes to help the stranded passengers offering to drop them home and taking the injured to hospitals; again putting the city into motion. But this time the much-celebrated spirit of Mumbai is crying for help. The city is experiencing a new emotion – the feeling of helplessness. For the first time they are realizing that being a superhero is not enough. When a city like Mumbai stops, it stops believing in itself.
India wants Mumbai, not only because it is the financial engine that drives our lofty dreams about tomorrow. It needs Mumbai because it is the only place in India where people can outgrow their pasts. It tells us that we can move ahead because of what we have inside us.
There are no limits to which it can be stretched. It is infinite.
posted by Sangeeta at
1:42 AM
2 Comments:
As I said on earlier posting tht u hv the capability of analysing a crucial concept and presenting it in a simpler way.
It is really nice to hear 4m u once again on a hot topic.....Ur comparing and concluding skills impresses me as they hv smthing or the othr tht touches one's heart and make one realise the reality in true sense.....
Overall a gud wrk done....
Atul
By
Anonymous, at 2:59 AM
good, mumbaikar likes it...waise tumhara fan (mr anonymous who writes down his name at the end) to bahut impressed hai with ur analysis!! :)
By
Buccaneer, at 12:20 AM
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