20 days in Mumbai, and if there is one thing that I’ve realized, it is that life here is way too fast. Sure you have beaches to wind down a bit, and sure you have hills to get a bit of the “natural” retreat, but neither are the beaches pristine nor the forests safe from the city’s effects.
From plastic-filled shores to the threat Aarey faces, everything that could provide the metro-human with an escape from itself just gets cancelled out in a vicious cycle of opportunity, action, and reaction..
People run as if their lives depend on catching a local train filled with thousands of others just like them, trying to hold on to the handles fixed on top like that’s the only — grounding that they can find, and others, more daring(or stupid), hanging at the gates as if no other train could have transported them to their destination.
I’ve never seen monotonicity more chaotic, I’ve never seen stories more rushed, flavourful, element-filled, yet seemingly copies of each other.
No wonder every Bollywood movie has to have a love story, 4 songs, heartbreak, fights, victory and losses, and by the end of it, the protagonist returns home, to a sense of familiarity, completing a full circle.
I’ve started to think if Mumbai influences Bollywood more than Bollywood influences Mumbai.
Copy, of a copy, of a copy, yet a unique story behind each. Every station has beggars with standardized tactics, ranging from emotional leverage to dramatic plays. Once you start seeing the pattern, you wonder if the financial capital of India really is quintessential to late capitalism.
From people selling you, “VIP” passes to have a look at your favourite God, to special deals on baskets of different ingredients, each having a different place in the “priority list” that God apparently has of what makes them happy. Alas, I can’t say this is specific to Mumbai.
I met this lady rickshaw driver, probably in her 60s, mouth full of paan masala and really badass accent, along with intimidating engine revs at each signal light, such a character. It was a sharing auto and I, being the curious fella that I am, couldn’t help but think about her possible backstories, why at this age was she driving? what made her take this traditionally male-dominant job up? what are the dynamics of being a lady rickshaw driver? and the things she experiences on a day-to-day basis.
Tormented by my inability to inquire, for there were other people in the rickshaw leaving no scope for privacy, all the while, knowing the fact that the city is too fast for me to even ask her name when I get off, I could only find myself drifting in a sea of imagined possibilities, of poems I could write and a fictional tale I could construct, without ever capturing the complete picture, unaware of the truer reality. Is that how Bollywood scripts are written?
The city is too fast for me, but in my slowness have I experienced the most beautiful sunset of my life at Dadar Beach, as the sun set behind the sea link, disappearing into the sea, giving way to the city lights, and in my slowness, have I been able to think about the story everyone here carries. In truth, I know for a fact I would be left behind if I do not start pacing, If I do not start living in a hustle, in a hurry.
Left with no choice but to become a part of this chaotic monotony, a copy of a copy of a copy.
