The heart is on hiatus

My writing usually focuses on the vagaries of the human heart and the machinations of love.  But my poor heart has taken a hard rap in the last 10 days. It skipped a 72-hour beat as a bunch of ruthless terminators gang-raped my city with grenades and bazookas while inept leaders led us to this slaughter with their carelessness and added insult to injury with their callousness. Thus the heart must go on a short hiatus to recover and heal as I look around and try to make sense of the senseless world we have allowed to grow around us.

November 26th-28th isn’t the first time we’ve been violated, even if it’s by far the most extreme. First came the garbage. Mumbai got turned into an open dumpyard with overflowing garbage trawlers all over from Malabar Hill to Mahim. We raved, ranted and eventually became ok. We bought a/c cars instead. Then came the slums. Every single piece of land meant for public amenities got swallowed by partisan vote banks.

We continued to rave and rant in the cocktail party circuit and added blinds to the windows of our a/c cars for good measure. Then came the ’93 riots. We watched mutely as the underworld morphed from Robin Hoodesque glamour into coldblooded terror and devoured the city and its fun n’ fearless chutzpah. The impossible had actually become a reality. We raved and ranted a lot more loudly this time. We were rewarded with an enquiry commission, 15-year delayed death sentences and a prime suspect who runs loose between Karachi and Dubai till today only to be captured occasionally by triumphant newspaper and TV spycams to add to their ratings and the man’s infamous legend. Exhausted and eager to forget, we relegated the event to urban legend instead, pulling out survival stories of March 1993 at poolside parties to entertain foreign clients eager to ‘understand’ India.  The list goes on but who’s got the time to count in Bombay? We rave, we rant, we harrumph and we go back to what we know best; profit creation. So we say, “Chill yaar, its ok”  and move on past every violation of our basic rights be it floods, riots, real-estate cartels or now, terror.

And thus Bombayites continue to live, in the mistaken belief that somehow Bombay is outside of the ‘system’. We are about professionalism, profits, Dalal Street, Bollywood and impossible dreams. Politics is what happens to the rest of India, the PLT (People Like Them). Us? We can bribe our way out of Hell if we have to. Yeah right! We were in our own personal, customised hell for 3 days and no amount of our Six Sigma and EBITDAs could come close to saving us.  It was a rude reminder that life in our buzzing economic cocoon can never again continue impervious to brass-tacks realpolitik. We can never again afford to be easily mollified by lip service like little children who are made to forget injuries with some cotton candy and a new trick.

Because November 26th was much more than just a bloody pogrom; it was the day they desecrated our most precious heritage — our memories. The Taj, the Trident, the Oberoi, Leopold Café, and many other legendary establishments are so much more than a cluster of hotels and restaurants. Bombay’s real landmarks are its people, and the places where they interact and exchange goods, services and ideas are its real and live monuments.

I am reminded of a little anecdote about a girl I know. The first time she ever went out alone at night was on the night of her school farewell to the Shamiana at the Taj.

Dressed in sarees, sashes and tiaras, 10 self-conscious 16-year olds made their way into Taj’s 24-hour coffee shop at the scandalous hour of 11pm only to discover that they had enough money between all of them to afford only one bowl of tomato soup! Trying to look as dignified as possible they just kept ordering for croutons to add to the soup — since it was the only thing free! Some years later the girl went to college and suffered from first love at first sight. She and her friend nicknamed the guy Mr Shamiana — as reference to the dream date of a candlelight dinner at Shamiana that he would one day ask her out to. But the restaurant and the man remained out of the reach and the years went by. And then one day last year she went back to the Taj with a friend to their favourite (and the city’s most expensive) restaurant, Wasabi and paid the bill herself! It was one of the proudest moments of her life, and her steady companion on that long journey from free croutons to black cod in miso was the Taj.

So, let no one ever again say, “Chill yaar, it’s ok” to an impassioned outburst against the horrors of last fortnight. That’s the least we owe ourselves as proud Bombayites.  I certainly won’t. I paid that bill after all!

 deblina@dnaindia.net