Column

To be honest, I’m getting a little tired of this city. Or, most likely, this city is getting tired of us. Look at the way it keeps spewing rubbish at us at every moment. Maybe the floods of 2005 were not just an “extreme weather condition” or a freak event.

Maybe it was like a “happening” from a Manoj Night Shyamalan film. Only, not just the trees and plants — the whole city’s colluding to send us a message: get out or else. Of course, I haven’t seen The Happening and from what everyone says, it’s not really happening at all.

But the idea — like all his ideas — is intriguing and attractive, however half-baked the execution and explanation. And, more importantly, serves my purpose at this time.

The mess is getting thrown back in our faces or all around our feet, especially in this season, because the city hates us and what we’ve done to it, both physically and psychologically. The romance of the monsoon is in your eyes only, as long as you look out of the window. The minute you hit the streets, it’s yuck, muck, guck and you add the other word because I can’t even if I want to.

The physical damage we all know about. But it’s more than that. It’s the boredom quotient. Have you noticed how precious and twee and sanctimonious and self-righteous we’ve become?

If it’s not put off the lights, it’s tie dupattas around trees or file PILs or only give jobs to locals and blacken the face of some teacher with straying hands. All these causes are worthy with deeper climate, ecological, legal and sociological implications I grant you that. See, worthy?

Then we’re so obsessed with heritage and finding the last Irani and the second-last brun maska and the oldest elevator and the third-oldest saxophone player that we’ve forgotten to be hip, hep, cool, with-it, sexy, hot, bad, wild and more for the present. We’ve become a city of bores, always looking back. What are we leaving for the future?

Where is wicked Mumbai, bindaas Mumbai, khali-pili boom nai marne ka Mumbai? The city where anything went and everyone did everything? The city where if you were a goodie-goodie you were as good as dead?

Now we have those idiotic news channels standing outside a flooded Milan subway telling us that Mumbai is resilient. Please. Just go home to wherever you came from and leave us alone. Unless the city gets tired of our extreme growing stupidity and throws us out. Because a boring Mumbai is a dead Mumbai.

Pick of the week: After all these years of Hinglish in advertising, I still don’t get it. I passed through the Mahim Kappad Bazaar the other night and saw a hardware shop selling “slinding doors” and all the other paraphernalia for carpenters, plumbers and masons.

All the items for sale were written in English. Then my eye fell on a bus. The advert on the side was for New India, where you could “holiday karo and enjoy karo” or some such. I figured that the carpenters, plumbers and masons preferred to have items for sale displayed in English.

And people who could afford some fancy holiday or real estate or whatever could read the Roman script as long as the words were in Hindi. Why not just use Devnagri? No, neither the carpenters nor the new rich care for our native Indian scripts obviously. It has to be English, this way or that. So much for Indian culture, eh?
b_ranjona@dnaindia.net