Comment

After Tuesday’s bomb blasts, and all the subsequent anger, breastbeating, talk of resilience, maybe it’s time for some plain speaking. Honesty.

One of the primary joys of living in Mumbai is that nobody cares. Now don’t start about the people who helped each other in times of trouble and all that. True. They did. Put that aside for a moment. Address the issue. No one cares. Apathy and indifference are the city’s abiding virtues. No one comes to Mumbai for the first time and writes those pathetically breathless pieces like they do in other cities. You know the stuff, filled with journalistic naiveté —no one does naïve quite like young journalists— about some Punjabi aunty in a flowery salwar kameez or Bengali mashima in a crumpled tangail or Mami in aKancheepuram sari who adopted you, fed you rajma-chawal, maach-bhat, bisi bhele huli anna, whatever turns you on, since you were alone and friendless, ad nauseum.

No one did and no one will. The best part is, you’re not expected toeither. You don’t have to feed your neighbours, solve their marital problems, interfere in their everyday lives, keep tabs on their comings and goings. Freedom!

This is also true of the man or the woman on the street. Rude city Mumbai, for which one must only give thanks. Who has time for politeness all the while, please, thank you, pick up my papers. You pick up your papers mate and I’ll pick up mine.

It’s a brusque city, take it how you will city. You want to sit down and cry about the plight of Israel and Palestine. Please, be my guest. Just don’t expect me to be part of it. And don’t expect me to know where bloody Palestine is or Israel either. The borders of Mumbai that was once Bombay have always stopped somewhere before Gujarat on one side, the Maharashtra hinterland before the Western Ghats on the other and the sea always takes care of the rest.

I stood once with a group of do-gooder activists on a protest against the Gujarat riots, outside the Churchgate subway near Asiatic Stores. No one stopped, no one paid attention, no one listened. Who would, at 5.30 in the evening on a week day. Would you? Could you?

Listen to the way the people talk. Ai, kya karta hai, sala this and bindaas that. Expletives don’t have the robust relish of the Dilli Jat set. This is matter of fact Mumbai. Chal phut city.

Which is why outpourings of brotherly love and caring are so easy at times of crisis: the love flows out, because you know that next week you can nod to each other on the stairs and work out ways to avoid the building society picnic.

The same cabbie who’ll cheat you blind every day of the week now has the simpatico to take you to hospital free. The policeman who would normally… er, maybe the policeman remains the way he always is. The street thug who’s looking for a fair bakra is now a Samaritan. The man who won’t pick up your papers is donating blood. The neighbour who you’ve never really met before is now handing out biscuits and water. There’s no need for an overdose of loving kindness everyday. We save it up for when it’s needed.

Long ago, when I was much younger and more aware of my rights, I walked out of my bank in Fort and headed towards Churchgate station. A man behind me started that odd hissing-kissing sound so unique to Bombay. How rude, I thought and ignored it. Madam, madam hiss-kiss went the sound behind me. I walked faster. Hiss-kiss madam, madam kept pace. Finally, near the university, I turned, ready to explode. “You dropped Rs 10,” he said, and vanished into the crowds.

All right, I accept it. Sometimes Mumbai does care. When it matters.