SAMIR NAZARETH
Many will remember the sights, sounds and smells of entering Mumbai by train. Overstuffed Mumbai locals, people defe cating on the tracks, the Mum bai stench – a combination of the sea, garbage and putrefy ing waterways – greeted one. Flying into Mumbai, offers a more atmospheric experience. The aircraft descends from az ure skies through brown smog into the muggy heat of the city. Exiting the arrival hall, Mum bai ensures that those de boarding experience the same city as those coming in by train – Mumbai Cologne, noise and bustle. At traffic signals and along the road, one wit nesses side hustles – begging, gambling and so on. The city’s freneticism draws a dusty shroud over its decay. Mum bai’s grunginess has nothing to do with aesthetic choice, but a collective detachment from one’s surroundings. Mumbai has many narrow dead-end lanes which feed the main roads. These lanes, either in a state of repair or disrepair, are lined with mul ti-storeyed apartments. There is a daily exodus of cars from these complexes, much like a cauldron of bats flying into the night from their roost. Vehi cles parked illegally on roads reduce the width of these arteries. Crossings witness gridlocks at a mind-numbing frequency as vehicles entering or exiting the narrow lanes at tempt to outmanoeuvre each other. The uneven dirty pedestrian paths are dotted with pockets of uncollected garbage, and intrepid entrepreneurs busy at work sitting on tiny stools or hunched over tables. Pe destrians walk by speaking on their phones or to each other unperturbed whether their secrets are overheard. All this action takes place to the soundtrack of vehicular noise. Nothing disturbs the polluted air of vibrant equanimity that swaddles the area. There is a certain romance when one uses the descriptive ‘the city that never sleeps’ for Mumbai. However, the city never sleeps because people are perpetually on survival mode. The poor are finding ways to supplement their in come, the rich are trying to add to their wealth, and those in-between shuttle between their jobs and home, finding personal time late at night. Thus, Mumbai’s stench, pol lution and detritus could be justified as by-products of the city’s industrious population. A vicious cycle keeps Mum bai humming. Construction, flailing public services and overcrowding caused by an increasing population provide a variety of occupations for this growing populace. Every pothole becomes an opportu nity to earn; every corner is a co-working space; every va cant lot a potential residence – no matter how humble; every promise of improvement assures an increase in some one’s already distended bank balance. The awfulness of this city is the Golden Goose. Why would anyone do anything to kill it? On the other hand, why can’t India’s richest city, which counts some of the most pow erful and richest businessmen in India, if not the world, as its residents, provide a better quality of life? Enamoured with Mum bai’s goldmine of opportuni ty, everyone is silent on the massive opportunity cost – the city’s low quality of life. Is there no time to demand for improvement, are these improvements unimportant or is it that the low quality of life is the price that the city extracts for the opportunity to live here? Apathy is a two-way street that keeps all happy. Unsur prisingly, responsibility is passed down the authority chain until it becomes an un necessary and inconsequen tial burden on someone face less enough to shrug it off. The civic indifference, grandiose dreams and per sonal aspirations apparent in Mumbai and Mumbaikars mirror a larger national ap proach to governance, and promises made by politicians. Politicians and governments voice a desire to transform Indian cities into some glitzy dreamscape of purported third-world aspiration. In 2014, Prime Minister Naren dra Modi promised to make Varanasi into Kyoto, then in 2019 he promised to make it into Paris. Former Chief Min ister of Delhi Arvind Kejriw al in 2017 and then in 2019 promised to transform Delhi into Paris and London. Mama ta Banerjee, the Chief Minister of West Bengal, made similar promises for Kolkata. In 2018, Devendra Fadnavis , then the Deputy Chief Minister and now Chief Minister of Mahar ashtra, promised to transform Mumbai into such an ideal city that even Shanghai would take notice. Recently, Union Minis ter Piyush Goyal told a Kar nataka State Minister to focus on transforming Tumakuru into Silicon Valley in response to the Minister’s criticism on this subject. Of course, such promises suggest politicians are copycats, unimaginative, appear clueless about ground realities, and know Indians are happy to partake in such zero calorie diets. Importantly, these prom ises forget the basic tenet – a city is as good as what the government provides for the socio-economically weak, and the behaviour of its residents and administration. The truth is governments take citizens for granted because in India voting is an emotional act and one based on pre-election benefits. Citizens, politicians they elect, and the govern ment know they have to did dle the other. Ultimately, it is the politicians who gain. Delulu is the word that comes to mind when one hears politicians make gran diose promises. There are many reasons to label them and their commitments as delusional. The first is their promise that Indian cities need to be modelled on these ‘modern cities’. The second is the presumption that these cities became what they are overnight, the third is the be lief that such cities will resolve India’s systemic challenges. These blingy promises are made by politicians to side step the makeover required of themselves and the city’s in habitants. That things haven’t changed much in these cities post these declarations prove their hollowness. Mumbai is sold as the city of dreams, maybe that’s the reason the monumental price the city and its people pay is ignored. There is a lesson here for those Indians enamoured by bombastic dreams of the country achieving interna tional respect. Is it worth the cost, because the common people ultimately live in the reality of its nightmarish out comes? (Samir Nazareth is an author and writes on socio-economic and environmental issues)
