Marine Drive is old Bombay and looks remarkably like the older parts of Clifton in Karachi: the same large avenues, the same weeping branches of banyan trees, the same screams as a rickshaw hurtles towards you with a death wish. Last week I narrowly avoided being run over by a speeding motorcycle that was driven by a woman in a flowing and intimidatingly secure niqab (Burka Avenger indeed…) There are echoes of Karachi everywhere in Mumbai, from the sandstone buildings to the old Parsi houses and the old golf clubs that are the only expanses of green in this city (I love you Wellingdon Club, I love you hard). I can walk from my apartment to the promenade by Marine Drive, a long crescent-shaped strip that overlooks a large bay, around which you can see the twinkling lights of skyscrapers and hotels. It’s the most picturesque part of the city, and I’ve begun taking my evening constitution there.
[quote]Public Displays of Affection i.e. PDA's are all the rage here[/quote]
At any time of day you’ll find young couples all along Marine Drive, sitting in pairs, hands interlocked, overlooking the ocean while they make out furiously and with passionate urgency. Public Displays of Affection i.e. PDA’s are all the rage here. This wasn’t the case in India a decade ago, obviously. And I don’t mean the coy, 70s-Hindi-movie-style of love (hand-holding, head-twitching and tortured eye contact). No, no, these couples are engaged in tongue warfare and it’s so amazing to see that no one bothers them in the least. Occasionally a beggar will walk up to a couple and poke them until the guy holds up a note in his hand, never once disengaging from his liplock, and the beggar will meander along the beach to the next couple. It’s like an ecosystem of love.
Every day I walk out and catch a taxi through the chaos to Mazgaon, the area I work in. It’s deplorably ugly. It takes me about thirty minutes through moderate traffic to reach a bridge, from where I turn left through some slums, right at the third factory, and left again past smellier slums. Unexcited by the prospect of staying there more than I have to, I leave slightly before rush hour to explore the rest of the city. Rush hour: I thought I knew what it meant from my years in NYC. I did not. Last week, to pluck an example out of the smoggy air, I spent 213 minutes in a taxi to go a distance that would ordinarily have taken me 20 minutes because I left at 5 pm and not at 4:45pm.
I began chatting to my taxi driver, a man called Ramgopal (one word, like Madonna, he insisted) from Calcutta. He was impressed with my Hindi and asked where I had learnt it. It’s in situations like these that I make a judgment call about whether to reveal I’m Pakistani. For the most part it’s fine, but when stuck in taxi-hell for a few hours with no escape routes, I decided to say I learnt it at school. For the most part they assume I am Brazillian for some reason, so I’ve come up with an elaborate back story (“Ola! My name is Pedro. I learnt Hindi at college and work at a pharmaceutical PR firm that overcharges for cancer drugs. Can you recommend a good place for dinner?”)
We talked about India’s upcoming election, as I have with almost everyone here. Most people are supporting Narendra Modi because of the economic windfall from “what he’s done in Gujarat.” Often, after a pause for the realization that they’re talking to a Pakistani, these people will say, “Well, yeah… the riots were awkward. I mean some say he’s a fascist but I REALLY don’t think he’ll do that when he’s in power...” For people like Inder, my housekeeper from Bihar who measures 4 ft 8 and makes only veg food (it’s been two weeks since I had meat, now people look like lamb chops to me), Modi’s promise of economic development is like a diamond in the sky, one he hopes to catch.
[quote]My friend is the only Muslim I've met here who inhabits the socialites' Bombay[/quote]
“But Congress will always have my vote,” said a Muslim friend I met in Bandra for coffee. “They haven’t been great but what’s the alternative?” He is the only Muslim I’ve met here who inhabits the socialites’ Bombay, and I suspect that’s because his grandmother was a maharani. You’re constantly left wondering where all the Muslims are. (I don’t mean the ones in the slums.) This Muslim friend took me on a walk along the beach in Bandra (it’s like the hipster center of Mumbai, with lots of people in skinny jeans). He pointed out Shahrukh Khan’s house (tacky), Salman Khan’s apartment (dubious duplex) and even Rekha’s Bungalow (perfect, like her) before he realized I’m not that into Bollywood.
Outside every star home there were hundreds of people just waiting to catch a glimpse of someone going in or out, and I marveled at how accessible it all seemed. I mean, if I know which house is Salman Khan’s, won’t a crazy man with a gun know it too? But these are things you don’t, thankfully, worry about in Mumbai. Despite its size and resemblance to Karachi, it is safe in a way other Indian cities are not. (Girls can get into taxis at any time of day or night.)
I’ve spent time in the bookshops of Kala Gorha, a lovely area near Colaba with the Prince of Wales Museum and several Fabindia stores (the clerks there know me well). I’ve dined at old Parsi cafés with their curious mix of Iranian and South Indian food; I’ve gone meandering on Thursday nights through art gallery openings which are usually glorious loft-like places behind doors that look like the entrance to a morgue; and I’ve eaten calamari at high-end restaurants that might as well be in New York’s Soho.
Like any great city, Mumbai changes from road to road. The true glory of it for me, though, is not that so many disparate worlds or opinions or people inhabit one desi city. It is, rather, to witness firsthand a place that can accommodate – somehow – all of them with room to spare.