Mumbai: From city of dreams to city of reams

It’s a storm-ridden, rainy evening and I’m on my way home in a rickshaw desperately wanting a hot shower, a plate of Maggi noodles and my Nora Roberts copy to curl up with. As I casually glance sideways, I see a scantily-clad toddler not more than three years old, holding a bucket (bigger than her body) in the direction of the water dripping from the plastic roof of her four-by-four feet shelter on the roadside.

A few steps away, a woman is trying to cook some rice in the collected water over a hearth made of dry leaves fast growing wet. She is surrounded by three more weary-looking kids and a bawling infant at her breast, while the husband is smoking away to glory leaning on their bundle of little belongings.

No, I’m not horrified by the condition of the woman; indeed, it’s too widespread now to have an alarming effect on me. What appalls me is the rapidly growing number of such illegal settlements that have cropped up in Mumbai over the last few years. Earlier, when you looked out of a Churchgate-bound train, you could see residential buildings standing tall across the railway compound.

Now, we have little huts (you blink and the huts grow into solid permanent structures) springing up as close as two feet away from the tracks. The suburbs and highways, too, are replete with such camps, multiplying as a result of migration, homelessness and unemployment.

What is distressing is that the city looks like it’s ready to burst with population. People sleeping on pavements, relieving themselves by the walls, shitting on railway tracks, shoving themselves into stuffed trains and buses have become a common sight here. And this is gradually giving rise to a feeling of congestion, filth and claustrophobia.

Really, be it hanging out in malls or walking by the road, I have had this lingering sense of surging crowd around me as if my elbow will hit someone in the eye if I raise my hand. It’s probably mostly psychological, but I have never ever felt this kind of acute restlessness in the midst of a swarm of people, as much as I do now.

Of course, the boundaries of the city are retreating and new constructions bouncing around, but at a relatively slower rate because the in-flow into the city of dreams is growing by leaps and bounds. And somewhere amidst this chaos, I feel a sense of loss for the city that once was.

No more strolls along the serenity of Juhu beach without a hawker coming and shoving a camera into your face for an instant picture every five minutes. No more gawking at the poised beauty of the sea at Marine Drive without pushy chanawallahs and jobless weirdos ogling at you. No more therapeutic window-shopping at malls without being jostled and tossed around by impatient hordes of masses. And of course, no more turning up at your favourite restaurant without having to wait in the queue.

I still love my city, but it pains me to see it ravaged and browbeaten like this, especially when I can only stand and stare in helplessness.