In search of Mumbai’s soul

Bereavement struck Mumbai last month when Dory, a cute Humboldt penguin, breathed her last in the Byculla Zoo. Her sudden death in October raised a political storm over alleged corruption in the purchase of air chillers, and concerns over the survival of her mates bought in a bulk deal. Even in mourning, we could sniff a scam. Incongruities abound.

The city was still being called Bombay when I first came here, a quarter of a century ago. Nothing much has changed in these years. The Mithi River has continued to carry mucky water during monsoons, attempting to wash away city’s sins and discharges. The city was let down by many a scam, its cries for survival being drowned in the cacophony of political powwows. We measured Mumbai’s evolution by the unrestrained growth of real estate, and the mess it created on the crammed city. It’s typical of an Indian city, a microcosm of the sexagenarian Republic.

Several big infra projects languished on the drawing board as daily commuters struggled on the world’s most crowded trains. A short metro rail track, a loss-making monorail, Eastern Freeway and Bandra sea-link are the only marquee projects that the cash-rich city got in so many years. Conceived over three decades ago, the Mumbai Trans-Harbour Link has undergone several miscarriages.

Once a thriving trading hub, Mumbai is now gasping for breath. Descendants of Bombay’s merchants, who opened trade routes with Arabia, Persia and East Africa two centuries ago, are missing in action much before Narendra Modi’s Make-in-India emerged. Textile tycoons have moved to more enterprising e-tailing and aviation. Several industries have happily sold their land parcels and scooted off to boundless joy.  Shipping and ship-building, a natural extension of trading hubs, are also dying a natural death. A clutch of imperial business families of Khataus, Scindias and Wadias have stayed out of the troubled waters.

Leftovers of the colonial era are what still lend the city a princely charm. The Rajabai Tower still reminds you of Big Ben. If Kala Ghoda makes you nostalgic, blame it on a multitude of Gothic and Victorian structures dotting the area. The cosmopolitan façade of the city has an unmistakable Queen’s label.

If one were to shift the RBI headquarters, stock markets and scores of bank headquarters out of the city, what is left of the financial capital of India?

The departed Humboldt penguin and the exhausted tiger in Mumbai’s national park are a few candid metaphors of the monumental ignorance by the state. The ‘resilient’ Mumbai remains a mute spectator to its own slide into the painful anonymity.

Last heard is that the forbidding ramparts of Mumbai Port are finally collapsing. The port, the traces of colonial era with the British-built Victoria and Princess docks in its prized possession, appears to be slowly retreating to the footnote of history. It has lost out in the high-stakes container business that has moved lock, stock, and barrel to Nhava Sheva, where the government operates India’s largest container port. The port is now unlocking its land asset along the eastern waterfront, to create something like a Darling Harbour of Sydney - a large recreational and pedestrian precinct complete with marinas, restaurants, shopping arcades and residential properties. Land sharks, swept off by the demonetization wave, are now smiling.

For me, the search for Mumbai’s soul continues.

The writer is editor, DNA Money. He tweets @AntoJoseph