Monday, December 1, 2008

Mumbaikar.

Sometime he/she has kids, sometimes he's a bachelor or a student, he may be a native or a migrant, he's been here for the past 5 decades or the past 5 years perhaps, he loves this city. He gets up in the morning at 6, picks up his lunch tiffin and the morning newspaper and goes to the station, he catches the 7:30 train, rush hour has started, sometimes he gets a place to sit, in the evening he always stands though. He meets office colleagues, train friends, talks cricket and rain. He works hard through the day, in the evening he buys something for his kid, or fruits or something else. The train journey back is a literal fight which can border on dangerous and can even be fatal sometimes. His friend lost a leg when he hit a pole while traveling in the train, but our MUMBAIKAR is not worried much, he holds on for dear life. Bus isn't an option, his office is far, he cant afford a 2wheeler everyday and definitely not a 4 wheeler, atleast not yet. The traffic is anyways so bad that he'll get a double cross everyday if he travels by any other mode of transport except train and probably loose his job. He trusts the trains though. He reaches home, tired but happy. One day he gets up in the morning and sees there have been bomb blasts in his beloved city. He is pained and grieves for the friends he lost, some of his train friends, no one he knew by name but faces that could have been his. He knows this. Mumbai stops for a day or perhaps 2 minutes(?) and there are voices screaming to be heard but no one listens, fingers are pointed, someone resigns, situation - status quo. The next day he goes to work as usual, he is scared and there's silence on the roads and in the trains people talk in hushed voices in the morning. But our man didn't have any CLs left for this month, he had taken 2 days holiday when his kid was sick of leptospirosis. Some label this as the Spirit of Mumbai. But he didnt have any choice other than to move on and he knows this. Is he immune to terror?? Does he tolerate terror?? Has he accepted terror as a part of his daily life?? His kid asks him in the night why did the trains blew?? He says there are some bad people who do this and the kids asks "TERRORISTS??". He is surprised at his kids vocabulary. Then one day he dies in the train blasts. Or maybe a gun totting man kills him, or may be he drowns in the floods or falls into an open manhole never to come out again, perhaps he falls off the train and dies, He died a little every day anyways. He/She was a Mumbaikar.

5 comments:

Nikhil said...

That pretty much sums up the poor average bombayite. but i dont think it was like this when Bombay was Bombay. so i will have to sya mumbaikar.

nicely put. People keep saying mumbai's spirit and resilience...but its nothing but helplessness. No one to hear a mumbaikar, no one to care.

Vidhi Patel said...

yeah.. it isn't the "Spirit of Mumbai" that drives the people here. as nikhil says, it is the helplessness. and it is the same for people in most other cities that go through similar situations.

This phrase "Spirit of Mumbai", according to me, is one of the reasons why we take such situations also lightly (read We as Mumbaikars and the Govt). we dont really try to figure out a solution. but just accept what happened and "move ahead" (rather just stay where we were before... helpless).
Same will happen this time. the minute the case shuts in the eyes of the media, people will forget the attacks, forget about finding solid solutions to prevent any future attacks, and go on with life.

Vidhi Patel said...

okie.. enuf time has passed off since the blasts... i dont know wat is happening about the case, but all i know is that most of us have forgotten the event already, just as i said in the earlier comment.

and what lesson has the govt/mumbai learnt from the attack? NONE.
the security is still the same. u may see more no. of police men around. but it is only numbers that has increased. not the quality of security.

anyway. i dont think that simply blogging about it is going to make any difference. so i shut up my mouth in this case.

Unknown said...

truly its pretty much the same then and now! Worst is the feeling that your LIFE is taken for granted...I don't know what to say but I feel really disturbed and helpless!

Vidhi Patel said...

and the "Mumbai Spirit" dialogues are back on! 1993, 2006, 2008, 2011... i hope this was the last.