Bombay Vs. Mumbai : Death of a City

It’s a weird place and I am referring to Bombay. Yeah, for now I am not going to call it Mumbai. I had fond associations with this place and I always wanted to be here until recently, a months ago, I realized that it’s not mine, not any more since I wasn’t born here and I don’t speak Marathi. I belong to another part of the nation that apparently lives on Mumbai, in Mumbai and in the future, for Mumbai.

It hardly matters that after spending about five years in this city, would I chose to stay here longer or would pack my bags and go back to the part of the nation that is meant for North Indians without any Marathi infiltration? Without a second thought, I will choose to get back to my people shattering the illusion I have created around me, that someday I will be settled in Bombay, watching the silent and at times turbulent sea from my window of a posh apartment because the place I wished to be in was Bombay, not Mumbai. Now unfortunately, Mumbai has got nothing to do with Mumba Devi anymore, it is about a political issue with hundreds of Dogs tossing it around like a bone and trying to mark their territories in their usual way.

I really feel sorry for Karan Johar that he has to apologise to someone as unimportant and irrelevant as Raj Thackrey of all the people to get his film Wake Up Sid screened across the entire state without any disruptions. Raj’s party people are busy to take on the Bombay Film Industry playing the role of Parallel Censor. Isn’t it contempt of the way a nation functions? The members of the Censor Board seem to have taken it too lightly but this statement by MNS puts up a big question mark on their efficiency as well as, authority and who is at the receiving end – Bollywood, aka 'Bombay Film Industry', Mr. Thackrey.

It is too disappointing a fact that Bollywood is not at all a collective forum. Wish they would have been united through this situation and showed at least of 5% of courage that they try to portray in their movies. It is strangely disheartening that how a goon, with a bunch of side kicks and an apparent support of the natives, forces an icon of the multi million film industry to fall on his knees and apologise.

Hats off to Aditya Birla for the wonderful Idea ad campaign. Did I see some raised eyebrows? Oh, I am talking about the campaign ‘Mera Number Mumbai Ka to Main Mumbai Ka’. It ran across all the news papers and TV channels not long ago. Though, not one of the most creative ones, I enjoyed each and every one of the commercials because it showed the way how a goon should be treated for sabotaging a nation’s vision. The campaign looked Raj, right in the eyes and said “Oh is it Mr. Raj? Do whatever you feel like. I am not scared of you and you can’t do anything to me, even with all your might!”

In a recent interview with Rajdeep Sardesai on CNN IBN, I saw him again, spitting venom like a black deadly cobra and I hated his aggressiveness for some incompetent ideologies of his. Apparently he was justifying his unofficial precedent that everyone should speak Marathi instead of Hindi and the logic he gave sent my blood pressure shooting through the roof. He mentioned that if Dr. Kalam, being the president never addressed the nation in Hindi and used English then there is no reason why can’t he use Marathi as his scepter? Surprisingly, I can’t even visualise any lines of comparison between Dr. Kalam and Raj Thackrey. May be because, they have such contrasting personalities.

I believe in the years to come, we will experience a civil war, or even worse we might even need Tourist Visas or Work Permit to step into Maharashtra. I always thought that the courage showed by NSG commandos during the Mumbai Terror haul last year would wash this hatred away from his blackened heart, but the power hungry Raj is to busy dreaming about the throne that he simply overlooked a nations effort saving his Mumbai and Marathi Manoos.

Elections and voting has got nothing in common. It is true you get choices, but you get to chose only from the Worse or Bad and democracy actually makes it often easier for people like these to get in power. I wish that the power to choose should be accompanied by the power to bring the person off his throne.

I live in an MNS dominated area and the scenes of the chaos that these people created just to see the names of stores written in Marathi are still etched fresh in my mind. The mere thought of going for a leisurely walk strangulates me. I don’t feel a part of this world, my building, their rituals and their celebrations. The Ganpati that I worship at my home in Diwali seems so different from the Ganpati that is worshipped in Maharashtra during the festival and it often reinforces the view that modern day politicians are so strong to have created a divide and a rift in religion and spirituality while they laugh their way off to the over increasing assets.

I am not of the breed often known as ‘literature hound’ but I lived with the saying, “What’s in a Name?”, wish Shakespeare have been a mumbaikar to save this city from another chaos. The name theory makes me more cautious everytime I would ask for a railway ticket over the ticket counter. You never know, the moment I ask, “Bhaiya, ek VT (instead of CST) return dena” and the guy from behind the counter would jump out of the window to beat the black and blue out of me. I don’t know if it might actually happen but Mr. Thackrey made me believe, in all possibility, it just could.

Looking closely at it, or coming to terms with it, it is not only me who got his illusion shattered. There are many others strangled in the city that once used to be the city of dreams and now is the city of dreaded nightmares for someone who doesn’t belong here. And, these nightmares will haunt you, everytime you go for grocery shopping, pay the technically correct fare to rickshaw wallah, come late to your flat(homes never exist here), ask for tickets, get in a bus and so on and so forth.

Piyush Singh

http://www.piyushsingh.com/

Copyrights: Piyush Singh/ www.piyushsingh.com

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