The Legendary Spirit of Mumbai - The Rains and the Trains

The recent Covid pandemic has again brought Mumbai to its knees. By cutting the lifeline of Mumbai - the local trains. The local trains have been known to run faithfully for over a century, I think, save for once every decade when record breaking rains bring Mumbai to its knees. The trains are known to run 24 hours, day in and day out, weekend and week days, holiday or no holiday. It brings the loyal Mumbai workforce from far flung residential colonies in satellite towns to the heart of Mumbai.

When I was in Mumbai we had record breaking rains in the months of June and July that again brought Mumbai to a standstill. But not reporting to work was like a sin. My co-employees from Mumbai still reached the nearest railway station and as far down south by train as possible in spite of the waters reaching dangerous levels. And then they Whatsapped their precise location, with a note that they could not proceed any further and were returning - or still stuck up! That is the legendary Mumbai spirit! This was also true of the residents in the co-operative flat that I stayed in. One proud father was heard boasting how far down south her daughter was able to go and still report to office, the last stop before the rails were completely submerged at Sion, and again at Parel.

No wonder that when Amazon decided to open its Landing zone for their AWS platform that has to run in spite of any calamity, natural or man made, they chose Mumbai! And maybe it is this spirit of Mumbai and its workforce that makes many corporations to make Mumbai their headquarters in spite of  overcrowding and soaring real estate prices.

The rains made Mumbai roads and everything else very filthy. I had to wade through knee deep evil looking water that was full of grime, mud, petrol and disintegrating tar to reach the bus stop or auto stand to get to the nearest railway station and switch from shoes to flippers. The auto guys still ran without complaining or raising their fares but they were limited by the intensity of the rain as the vehicle would lose control once the water rose above the wheels.

The trains made a sound similar to a rainstorm approaching as they approached the railway station and suddenly braked, and then departed in a couple of seconds. It was the same sound the rains made when they started pouring day in and day out for weeks. I usually welcome the sound of rain, but that experience made me nervous at hearing that very sound as the rain turned into a deluge almost half submerging my Activa and almost all the parked cars in the locality up to the foot board. It was like Mumbai was an island in the middle of the sea with occasional squalls passing over it.

Clothes get damp and start rotting, walls start leaking, big patches appear on the walls, the rooms have a musty smell. No wonder the millionaire Gujrati businessmen wear cheap cotton T shirts and sandals and carry moldy leather wallets in monsoon. I was glad when the rains finally stopped.

Today the Covid situation has put a stop to the locals and brought Mumbai to its knees again. I can very well imagine the agony of the average faithful Mumbai office-goer with that legendary Mumbai spirit for not being able to turn up at office!

Mumbai - People and Places with Character

 The one thing about Mumbai is that just as the people have such a unique memorable endearing character (Bombaiyya style you call it), the places too have a unique character and flavor about it.

When I first came to Mumbai I was told that I would have to get down at a place called RK. I jogged my mind and the first thing that came to mind was RK Studio. I asked if that was so, and the answer was affirmative.

I have heard of almost every place in Mumbai- in Bollywood films, in newspaper advertisements - every company worth its salt has a corporate head office in Mumbai.

Talking to a Mumbaikar gives you a strange feeling of actually taking part in a Bollywood movie- the slang that you have heard in so many of the movies, old and new, you experience first hand and you have to pinch yourself to think if this was for real. Every Mumbaikar is a mini version of a Bollywood movie star complete with movie style slang and dramatic gesture. When you bump into someone on the local train and he says with  a dramatic flourish - "Ayy bhai, jarra dekhe chalo" - you think, where have I heard that before?!

And the autorickshaw wallahs! Autowallahs in every city have their own peculiarities. The Bangalore ones for overcharging, being rude gangster types with their infamous one-half charges. The Mumbai auto wallahs are never short of fare. They will go long distance or short distance and they will always get another fare at the end of the trip- Mumbai being so packed.

Mumbai autowallahs will return you the exact change - even if it is one, two or three rupees and they will go precisely by the meter. They will actually be surprised if you ask them to keep the change. They are a talkative lot. They will curse the government or praise it; or comment on some political party; or give you a commentary on the latest sensational political news topic.

Mumbai is the Indian version of New York and Hollywood rolled into one!

Yeh hai Mumbai!

I had a short term contract at Mumbai, but knowing what I heard of Mumbai I was not too keen on it, but decided to give it a shot. I knew that most of my travel would be on the infamous 'local' or suburban trains where millions of commuters travel jam-packed in congested space daily, where there is no space except for your two feet on the floor. You could opt for Uber, taxi or private vehicle, but Mumbai being what it is, an island city that has grown not outwards from the center but in a linear fashion from south to north, there is no faster way to travel than these local trains where you will be suffocated for several couple of minutes but would be relieved to reach your destination spot on time. From south of Mumbai to central Mumbai (where most Mumbaikars work) would take about twenty minutes and from there another half hour to the outer suburbs (where most Mumbaikars live) outside the 'island'. Mumbai was a way of living and Mumbai did not accept you unless you traveled on these locals (train).

Mumbai is where people from all over India come with big dreams. And those dreams are more or less satisfied, provided that you have it in you to bear what Mumbai throws at you. Anybody looking out for a job will get one, maybe menial, but enough to get food on your plate. You should be willing to grin and bear the congestion, the dirt and grime, the messy monsoon and sultry summers, the people and people every where, the ancient  buildings where most Mumbaikars dwell and of course the 'local' trains.

My first task was to look out for a place to rent and I had my task cut out. Real estate in Mumbai is one of the costliest in India and I had to start looking out much before I set foot in Mumbai.

I got a couple of phone numbers on real estate websites and I started calling around to make sure I could start searching as soon as I landed. All of the numbers I got belonged to real estate agents. I found that I could not get the bachelor type accommodation that I was looking out for, but most of these rentals were mini apartments in dilapidated small buildings called co-operatives that were falling apart, each of which housed about a dozen such cramped residences. The cost of each rental was double of what I could expect in Bangalore for the same space and the deposit itself exceeded one  lakh plus a lock-in period of a minimum one year. A lock-in was an agreement that you would not vacate the premises before the said period or you would pay rent in lieu of that, adjusted with the deposit.

I did not want a lock-in clause so I had a hard time talking to brokers who could agree to that.

The first question I was asked was to which caste I belonged. I said I was Christian and we did not have caste, but Christian was considered the caste there on and I was officially a 'Madrasi'. Caste and state matter a lot in Mumbai which loves to label people; and localities and ghettos are characterized by this labeling.

I wanted to stay somewhere near my office as I could minimize my train travel so was on the look out for some place near Central Mumbai, but most of these stays especially those near to the railway stations and the main roads have been inhabited by Gujaratis for ages, while other communities reside more to the interior or on the suburbs of Greater Mumbai. Cooking or eating food in  a property owned by a Gujarati and especially Brahmin is a strict no-no. However I was not too worried about eating non vegetarian food; and that was a good thing as I would then have limited choices to stay and would be restricted to spaces in Muslim or Christian ghettos where I would be able to fry omelette or bring in take-out biriyani but manage with leaky walls and peeling paint and the risk of the entire plaster collapsing on me.

Finally I talked to a smooth talking hindi-film goon-like bhaiyya character from near Simla called Sooraj who introduced me to a Gujarati family who agreed to my terms. There was a complicated process of signing the rental agreement that looked official enough to seem that I was buying the entire property, complete with Aadhaar verification and thumbprints. One copy would go to the police station they said; Mumbai was not taking chances after the so many terrorist attacks that had taken place in recent history.

I found that the word 'terrorist' and 'bomb' was used in common language as if it was something Mumbaikars dealt with it on a daily basis!