Mumbai muse: This is not really a column

Before we look up our story lists and start our duties for the day, we, the people on the city desk, or city deskies as we are called, have a very unusual addition to our routine.

Soon after plopping down at my work station, the first words to escape my mouth are, “So who is our muse for the day?”

Working on the city desk is exciting indeed - ship-shaping and fact-checking the crime, education and the “hottest stories” that the maximum city has to offer.

But of late, us deskies, have had mixed reactions to the new feature that we carry on one of our pages — the Mumbai Muse. It breaks the monotony of the run-of-the-mill stories that we carry but there has been a raging debate as to what should go on.

Initially, it was understood that it would include women and how they relate to the city, but as the days progressed we were presented with pieces that went way beyond the usual suspects: the modes of transport, food the city has to offer, apartment hunting, spatial struggles… As mentioned above, there were some very personal pieces sans the city.

Some entries did come across as something that would have been better off on a personal blog than a daily. But then there were some that redeemed the two-column space that they occupied on page number five (most of the time).

I even went and asked Amberish Diwanji, in charge of coordinating the various columns that we carried on our pages, “So what’s this muse all about? Are the women the muses or is the Mumbai supposed to be their muse?”

He retorted, “This question has been put me in an existential crisis.”

Having found no answers there, I pursued the topic further with my other colleagues — most men were complaining and wondering why only the ladies were permitted to write in this space — the title Mumbai Muse is very gender neutral, they said.

As several muses columns were printed, I came by the conclusion that these columns were supposed to be something that the reader would relate to, normal everyday experiences that could have happened to anyone, an insight to the great metropolis that is Mumbai. That is what a reader would have got out of it but for me it was a way to know my colleagues better.

At work everyone is in a hurry to meet deadlines, submit articles, making pages and what not. So the little socialising that one can do is reduced to exchanging pleasantries.

Since most of the write-ups have been of a personal nature and even if I don’t think that they go with the theme of the column, they have revealed to me little precious facets about their authors.

To conclude, I would like to note that the women or girls from the edit part of the paper have made their presence felt. I would like the ladies from reporting to pitch in and let us know a little more about them too.