A week on and I’ve developed a semblance of a routine in Bombay. (Sorry, Mumbai.) I wake up to sounds of horns and shouting; I eat breakfast; take a taxi through the sound of horns and shouting; get to work; stare at blank walls for six hours while contemplating how so many people can live in one city; take a taxi back through the shouts and horns; shower to reveal what I thought was a tan but is actually dirt; and repeat.
Evening is when Mumbai comes alive for me, and I have tried my hardest to talk my way into as many different “worlds” here as possible. (Old Bombay looks down on the filmy crowd, the filmy crowd looks down on the professionals, and so on). Being Pakistani helps; it’s like being an exotic bird that has landed in a nest of sparrows. It gives me great access. Observe: Last week began with an Architectural Digest magazine party at the Four Seasons Hotel. The party’s purpose was to celebrate the New Top 50 design gurus of India. (I was taken along by a friend.) It was basically a wonderful outdoor cocktail party filled with interior designers, editors of Vogue, architects, CEOs and other such sorts.
[quote]Madhuri Dixit and Juhi Chawla walked in together[/quote]
A few nights later I met up with an acquaintance of a friend, an expansive individual who turned out to be in the “movie business” (that’s a coy variation on Bollywood, if you please). He had offered to take me to a movie premiere that evening. We met for drinks at a fancy hotel near the filmy area where, as I entered, I saw a surly-looking Arjun Rampal sitting alone at the next table. (Yes, he really is that good-looking, and yes, it’s depressing.) An hour later I emerged onto the third floor of a cinema where the premiere for Gulab Gang was being held. It seemed fairly normal to see people milling around the concession stand. Upon inspection, I learned that Bollywood was there in full force. I saw the guy who directed Sholay and was later chatting to a man who was introduced to me as a musician. I asked him what kind of music he made. He said all kinds. I said how wonderful it was to meet a musician and asked where I could hear his music. He stiffened slightly. Later I was told he was Anu Malik. (‘My Heart is Paining, It’s Paining, It’s Paining’.)
And then, mere moments later, Madhuri Dixit and Juhi Chawla walked in. Together. The crowd went nuts. They are truly beautiful, the both of them. You never expect stars to look the same in real life as they do on screen, and it’s even rarer when they look better.
Most everyone I have met here has been engaging, generous, curious and welcoming. Occasionally I’ve been asked something like “Do you have art in Pakistan?” (“Why, yes, we do. Much like you have the bubonic plague in India…”) And then there’s the statement I’ve heard more often than I’d like: “Mumbai is really just like New York!”
No, it’s not. I get that Mumbai is cosmopolitan, and I understand that it has some skyscrapers, but it’s not New York for a whole host of reasons. People don’t defecate on the streets of New York. I know I’m going to get hate mail for this (tempted to say I don’t give a sh**) but I need to talk about it. I hadn’t expected the defecation to be as prevalent as it is. On my second day I was told to take the train for the experience. Standing at the end of the platform, a man next to me just squatted and went to town, his bum hanging off the edge. I took a breath (not a deep one, obviously) and walked out, never to return again. Another time, as I alighted from a taxi, I found myself facing a man who was blissfully relieving himself on a street corner. Kill me for saying this – here come the Indian trolls! – but I have never seen this done in Pakistan, and so am disturbed in ways I haven’t quite processed.
[quote]I often have to remind my Indian interlocutors that MF Hussain was exiled from India for blasphemy[/quote]
I do concede, however, that Mumbai and NYC share an air of callous aspiration, which often takes the form of their residents’ steely indifference to the realities around them. Mumbai is also like New York (well, sort of) in its successful upholding of a fantastic self-projection. I mean, who outside India could guess that right now the country’s papers are all abuzz with the story of how Penguin Books has recalled all copies of two perfectly harmless volumes that offer an alternative history of Hinduism because they happened to offend a few conservative citizens. And compare this to Pakistan, which despite its literary festivals will always, it appears, be branded as a land of bearded fundos. I can’t help but feel that our problems, despite the difference in the “official” narrative, are often quite similar. In other words, Pakistanis are not the only crazies in this region. It’s like when I walked into the Taj Hotel and saw a massive mural by the late MF Hussain. He’s been brought up to me in conversation more times that I can recall, mainly as an example of the greatest Indian artist of all time. When my Indian interlocutors ask me how great it must feel to be in a free country, I often have to remind them that Mr. Hussain was exiled from India for blasphemy and died a sad old man in the Arab Middle East. India’s elites may claim him now, and piously garland his portrait, but they failed to protect him when he was alive.
You may accuse me of being a jealous Pakistani who is being petty and ungracious. But that’s not the case. I’m really wondering how a nation (read: a middle class) that believes all of its own rhetoric can keep a grasp on reality.
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Fayes,
I too am an outsider (albeit from Delhi) in Bombay, and your reactions mirror my early ones. But having been here for about few years now, I really can’t imagine living in Delhi (uncouth/uncivilised) or have some burning desire to get out of this place – Stockholm syndrome? maybe… but this place has a good vibe, despite the dirt – people relieving themselves on the tracks is commonplace but the guy squatting off the platform is a new one!!!
Also, if you want a “real” feel for the city, suggest you get beyond the socialites. They are, with a few exceptions, the most unreal, irritating and frankly avoidable part of this city. Go sit at Mondy or some such or any one of the permit bars – you will hear stories that interesting and crazy at the same time. You want the poverty (oh how can they live like this) experience then take a guided tour of Dharavi, but please get beyond bollywood/socialite types. Also avoid the kababs – this place can’t do meat… they are the fishy types.
Btw – you got stiffed on acco – Mazgaon!!!! – that is literally and otherwise… the boondocks.
Best
M F Hussain died in london. Did he have to paint ahindu goddess inthe nude? The reasonfor his exile? He wudnt mess with his own religion, wud he? Freedom of speech cannot mean do as u plz regardless of others sentiments.
M F Hussain had drawn hindu goddesses naked and the whole thing was tolerated or ignored by hindus for 20 years. Then a hindu asked him why he had not drawn Ayesha, Fatima, Zainab etc. naked and that question alone made him flee from India.
It was his own hypocrisy and cowardice that drove him away from India.
If MF Hussain had painted a picture pf Prophet (PBUH) i am sure middle east would have given him a different kind of welcome.
I find the comments irrelevant, what have you seen in New York have you seen the New York slums i.e. Ghettos, If you haven’t seen them shut up have you seen poor rag pickers homeless living places and the places they defecate then you will not comment on such thing as far as pakistan cities they don’t count for anything, if you see where poor people in pakistan stay for that matter poor christians are staying in islamabad you will not make this comment, I find the bias in writing, If the writer wants to make a good impression Pls do the homework and write decently
You have made this new york comment so many times – It surprises me. I am a mumbaikar – albeit a middle class mumbaikar and I have never ever heard anyone say mumbai is like New york. Also I think you must question your own prejudices when you write – sometimes, when we write about americans we talk about how dumb the goraas can be and how insular they are forgetting the brilliant systems of administration these so called dumbos have established in a vast country. So look beyond the cocktail parties to see how ordinary people live their lives – how the buses run efficiently – how our mumbai trains run so efficiently – how people are friendly, no-nonsense and honest, how north indian taxi drivers and maratha dabbawallahs coexist. And get over MF Hussain – I think the other respondents pretty much exposed his approach to freedom of speech – and he was in no danger – he chose to stay away.
Mr. fayes
India will be success story and Pakistan a failed state ,surviving on alms .
Mumbai is like New York for being the most important financial center of the country, for the sheer energy of its citizens and for their very cosmopolitan outlook. Everybody is welcome, nobody cares where you’re from, what religion you follow, what language you speak or what food you eat. Everybody is a potential friend, business associate or colleague. New York and Mumbai are two among a handful of cities where that’s true and that’s why the comparison holds.
And then, M F Hussain wasn’t exiled from India for blasphemy as Mr. Kantawala so blithely states. He left on his own accord because he wasn’t able to answer the uncomfortable questions that Hindus were asking him. And they weren’t accusing him of blasphemy, that concept doesn’t really exist in Hinduism –there is no offence against God, only against man; they believed that it wasn’t his love of Indian heritage that led him to paint nude Hindu goddesses but something else. They were offended at his casual disregard for their emotions and angry that he ignored their concerns. Remember that he worked in India for decades without any harm being done to him. Do you think that could happen in your country Mr. Kantawala?
I am disappointed by Mr. Kantawala’s writing. I was hoping he was a man of some substance but he turns out to be just another pathetic Pakistani looking for things to disparage about India. Quite sad really.
C’mon none of his comments are off track … Mr Kantawala is a guest in Mumbai … he is good writer and an independent one who has made enough enemies in his own countries by writing against fundamentalists … he is here to form his opinion about the Maximum city… we may like it or dislike it … but they are his opinion … when did we ban free speech? … on Hussein, yes the great artist was threatened by madcaps … but the exile decision was his own … India did not exile him … but sadly we could not make him feel safe either ….
Mr. Kantawala, Mumbai is like Mumbai. Even if it was possible I would never, ever want to to be like New York. Yes, the defecating bit is an eyesore but when a million folks gotta go, they gotta go.
Mr Kantanwala, I was following you on TFT for a long time and consider you the most liberal of the Paki Muslims. But you have shattered your image by just choosing to align yourself with so called Be-ghairet brigade of your land of pure.
Pity on the Nation who give birth to such liberal scum.
For someone who devotes so many lines of his column to strenuously deny any attraction for “bollywood”, you somehow keep finding ways to name-drop and count the seemingly random encounters you have had with people from the ‘movie business’!