Sea-link test of belonging

On a recent trip to Hyderabad, almost everyone I met asked me about the Bandra-Worli Sea Link (now called the Rajiv Gandhi Sea Link, I think, but you and I both know that no one will call it that). Had I been on it, did I like it, wasn’t it fabulous? I answered yes to all three and then, to be polite, said I was looking forward to travelling on their new 11km flyover at the airport. It was a great saving, that flyover in Hyderabad, but honestly, how can it compare to a ride in the middle of the sea with a huge city looking back at you?

But here’s a question I didn’t ask in Hyderabad: is the sea link enough? And I don’t mean the traffic jams at the Worli end in the mornings and the Bandra end at night. Or even that this bridge is one-fourth of what was sold to us as one freeway. Or even that people on Worli Seaface feel their privacy has been destroyed and their domain made public. (To be honest, I hadn’t visited Worli Seaface as often in the past 40-odd years as I have since the link opened.)

Obviously, the answer is no. The twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad cannot compare with Mumbai on most megapolis measures, but when it comes to infrastructure, wow, they are worlds ahead. The cities look smarter from the outside. None of the higgledy-piggledy mess that we find ourselves in everyday, where skywalks compete with flyovers which are snaking around over-the-ground metro railways (this amazing Mumbai contradiction in terms) which are soon to meet some monorails and hell knows what else. Oh, I know what — some trans-harbour bridges, cross-city links, and statues in the sea.
All right, I take that last dig back because was it not Hyderabad where a gigantic statue of the Buddha fell into the Tank Bund lake? We all make mistakes.

The last word, though, has to go to a taxi driver who still cannot get over the beauty of the sea link. It is Mumbai’s pride, he told me, which is also India’s pride. No other place in the world can compare. I must confess that he was from North India but Mumbaikars can be born anywhere. If they like the sea link, that should qualify them.