Column

What is happening to Air France? These days, it seems that the very sight of Indians sets off a frisson of disgust and stirs cruelty in the airline’s staff. Two sets of Indian passengers have been ill-treated by Air France, in Paris, this month alone.

The sadistic impunity with which the poor fliers have been starved and tightly corralled into transit rooms at the Paris airport argues racist aggression. The French have always believed that their country is the real superpower. A Parisian friend told me during the George Bush years, “So what if America has a lot of missiles? I don’t fear a nation whose president cannot pronounce ‘Sainte-Beuve’. I bet he’ll say saint Booey!”

That comment vindicates the sociological postulation of professor Henry Higgins: “The French don’t care what they actually do, as long as they pronounce it properly.”

Clearly, one can have plenty of fun with French stereotypes. But what about Mumbai stereotypes? They are excavated after every flood (gritty), terror attack (resilient), or a fissure in Bollywood marriage (bindaas). After the recent Air France episode, a friend brought up the other Mumbai mythos: “I don’t know if a Mumbaikar was part of the group abused by Air France. But if that is the case, it will make my blood boil. Mumbai: One of the top centres of global economic opportunity! The acme of metropolitan dazzle! The cradle of epicurean living! How can anybody ill-treat a Mumbaikar!”

I am sure some of you will notice that my friend was reprising John of Gaunt’s purple patch about England, from ‘King Richard II’: “This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle, this earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, this other Eden, demi-paradise, this fortress built by Nature for herself.”

Ha!That is the image of our great city that the credit-card brigade would like to believe. But hard facts belie the hyperbole. What do people, foreigners or Indian out-of-towners see when their planes descend on Mumbai? Slums! The rehabilitation of slum-dwellers, who encroached land around the airport decades ago, has been carried out in fits and starts. But the vision of great Mumbai, as everybody knows, is blurred by the netas’ farsightedness about captive votes that thrive in squalid conditions. Why, back in 2007, Praful Patel said, “Mumbai is lagging behind Delhi and Bangalore when it comes to airport modernisation and expansion. Frequent political disruptions are further harming the cause.”

And these days, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation and the Mumbai International Airport Limited cannot even agree on how to desilt the nullahs around the airport. Why am I going on about the airport? Because that is the entry point of visitors into our beloved metro. Remember, one of Shilpa Shetty’s tormentors asked her on Big Brother if she lived in a shanty. Even before Shetty became famous as the owner of T20 cricket team, and even when she was a failed actor, she looked pretty rich to most Indians. And she looks decidedly non-shanty, does she not?

I will close with a story from another friend, an Australian businessman. During a ride from Mumbai airport to Nariman Point, he confronted his tax-driver. “I know you’re over-charging me, mate,” he told the driver. “I don’t care because I can afford it, but I don’t like it.” At that moment, they were on the Bandra bridge and the driver pointed to a traffic cop accosting a fellow taxi-wallah. “Bribe, bribe!” my friend’s driver yelled, and smiled. “That’s Mumbai,” my friend sighed. So should we all.