Mumbai on its mind

When you’re waist-deep in rainwater in Mumbai, and avoiding open manholes that have become the focus of unedifying attention from Americans, it seems a stretch — and more than a little unkind — to recall that the city once dreamt of becoming a Shanghai.

Mercifully, those unrealistic dreams have since been tempered by the cold realisation that before it aspires to become a Shanghai, Mumbai has, first, to become a better Mumbai.

Which means that hearts and minds must be kept wide open to “outsiders” (in the words of provincial, parochial politicians), and the only things that should be kept firmly shut are manhole covers that suck out human lives...

For a brief while last week, however, Shanghai realised the inverse of that urban aspirational dream by becoming a little bit like Mumbai in terms of the things that lights up its soul.

And what better way to do it than with cricket and Bollywood music...

Cricketing legend Sunil Gavaskar travelled to Shanghai over the weekend as a special guest of the Shanghai cricket sixes tournament, the annual carnival of sixes that’s becoming a feature of this truly world city.

The Indian Association in Shanghai had arranged for a gala dinner event with the original Little Master, where the feast of cricketing reason was well-matched by the flow of soulful entertainment.

Also last week, Shanghai swayed to pulsating Bollywood beats at a ‘BollyHop’ party hosted by Shanghai Devils, an event management firm. For one whole night, about a 1,000 party animals — Indian and Western expats and Chinese — were transported from the upmarket Club Attica on Shanghai’s famed Bund to Mumbai as DJ Harsh, who flew in from Delhi, kept up a lively mix of bhangra, hip-hop, Bollywood and R&B numbers. Gorgeous Eurasian women dancers dolled up in ghagra-choli and kept the adrenaline (and other hormones) flowing with a dance medley featuring Billo Rani, Kajara Re, and It’s Rocking.

“Bollywood events of this kind are hugely popular in Shanghai,” says Deepak Nautiyal of Shanghai Devils, who has been living in Shanghai for four years.

“Earlier this year, when we organised a similar event for Holi — with gulal and the works — it was telecast on Shanghai TV and covered by Shanghai Daily. The TV crew even visited an Indian home to film and explain to Chinese viewers how an Indian family prepares for Holi.”

Some questions don’t lend themselves to ready explanations, such as this one, asked with disarming candour, by an amiable Chinese gent on East Nanjing Street, Shanghai’s commercial district: “If you’re Indian, why are you so white?”