Comment

I looked around the DNA newsroom on Thursday morning and realised that there were only a handful of people around who were in Mumbai in 1992-93. It was a watershed year for Mumbai, 1993, because the riots of January and the bomb blasts on March 12 changed in some way, forever, the way Bombay — it was still Bombay then — reacted.

During the riots we were frightened, no doubt about it. But every single day, people tried to get to work because those were the rules. It didn’t matter where you came from in the world, Bombay had rules. Going to work was one of them. The other was that we were all in it together, sink or swim, one city. This was the first time that south Bombay had felt the wrath of rioters and posh societies in Malabar Hill and Napean Sea Road were attacked.

So, civil society stood up and went forth. Bejewelled ladies in their chiffons and pearls ventured forth into areas never seen before and said. “Yeh bahoot karaab hey. Dosti karne ka hey. Jagda nai karne ka” and so on. Bombay was under threat and it was all hands on deck. We had to save our city from the horror.

By the time the bomb blasts happened, Bombay had clearly had enough. I remember getting that first call on March 12 from Rahul Singh, who said that the Air India building had been bombed. The newsroom burst into action even as bombs burst all over Bombay. The next day, March 13, the train was jampacked. I got off at Churchgate station to find it equally packed, with people donating blood. The refrain was the same: we cannot allow anyone to stop us. This is Bombay, we shall never surrender.

But the events that led up to March 12, 1993 and the events that happened since did change us. The politics of it changed us. The hatred of it changed us. Bombay, which had never bothered about politicians and their doings, even about India and its doings, caught a virus. The myth about this resurgent Mumbai and Mumbai spirit sprang from that day but in our pride we did not realise that we were sick.

The sickness has come to the fore since — the fear after the sundry other bomb blasts, including the horrible train blasts of 2006 or indeed the giant flood of 2005. The get-up-and-go city just sat down; it felt that it was being hammered from all sides, by human evil and nature’s cruelty. And meanwhile, where once a Shiv Sena bandh meant us kids skating up and down Malabar Hill, today MNS on the rampage means everybody stays home.

The rage that Mumbai has expressed since the terror attacks, though, might work to bring bindaas Bombay back. It provides a bit of hope. Have people realised that it’s everyone for everyone and not the devil take the hindmost? Have people realised that every part of this city is equally important, from the chawls of Girangaon to the malls of Malad? Have people realised that Mumbai city deserves more and better? That we have to fix this city because no one is going to do it for us and us locking ourselves up in our houses will not help? The way an icon like the Taj was attacked shows that the terrorists thought they knew where to hurt us. Are we going to let them?

I saw Calcutta collapse in the late 1970s and it was not a pretty sight. Rajiv Gandhi was not far wrong when he called it a dying city, for all the flak that he faced. It was a mirror he held up and Calcutta bridled at the picture. Let Mumbai not make the same mistake. We defeated them with our courage in 1993 and we can do it again.

This is not about that bogus spirit of Mumbai, the myth of March 1993. This is about Mumbai caring about itself and showing that to the world. It’s aamchi Mumbai, remember?

Email: b_ranjona@dnaindia.net