Amchi Mumbai……

Let the proclaimed Sarkar not hear a malayali tell this, else it would be another reason for him to create commotion and be in news, for he is willing to accept Rajanikant as Mumbai wala and not Amithab. Isnt it all an outcome of the linguistic division of states…Even the name has been changed from Bombay to Mumbai…

In the railway stations there the crowd is akin to Pooram everyday. And the cost of living there!!! Incredible!!! Some beggers earn Rs.3,000/- per day. Most of the billionaires in India live here, Industrialists, filmstars and sports stars, this being the commercial capital of India, and therefore, now even in news as often, being the 7th richest/Costliest city, where billionaires live. Here you indeed find, Unity in diversity. Dhalal Street and Dharavi. Bollywood and Business. City Streets, Mals, and country roads, poverty, and wealth. Also lot of underwold activities, takes place here. Though Cricketers say, we don’t go to shooting places, it is the filmstars who come to watch cricket, there are nexuses between Bollywood, and BCCI, which has further strengthened with the IPCL. If for Americans New York is the city that never sleeps, Mumbai is India’s New York.

As Salma Rushdie puts it:
Bombay was central, had been so from the moment of its creation, the bastard child of a Portuguese-English wedding, and yet the most Indian of Indian cities. In Bombay, all Indians met and merged. Also they met what was not Indian. It is an ocean of stories.
What was beautiful in Bombay was that it belonged to nobody, and to all. You could see the everyday live and let live miracle thronging its overcrowded streets. Words like it being of Maharashtrain’s alone are not easily digestible. On the way to Bombay the rivers of blood were usually diluted, other rivers poured into them, so that by the time they reached the city’s streets the disfigurations were relatively slight.

But the 1992, series of Bomb blasts, is indeed the masterplans of those who hated India, those who sought to ruin it, wanted to ruin Mumbai. Again there was issues nearly 15 years later, in 2006.

If you are a real Mumbaikar and away from Mumbai, you get sentimental
1. Even if you hear words like Kalyan,Chembur; Dadar;Andheri and Bandra.
2. Mumbai - the only city where people no matter what language, religion and caste, express frustration by saying 'chyayla'.
3. The only place where even bus conductor motivates us "chalo aage badho"
4. For Mumbaikars - Burger bole toh bakwaas, vada pav bole toh zakhaas.
Mumbai - A city where people come to make their career and end up making their life.
5. You never say angry. You say "dimaag ki maa behen ek ho gayi he"
6. Some words we use often - ghanta, waat lagayi, aai shapath, item, pandu, faadu, iski maa ka, bhai party, bantai, kat le, jhol, le bhari, ek number bhai.
7. In India we drive on the left of the road. In Mumbai we drive on what is left on the road.18. In Mumbai matter word has more social reference than scientific (matter ho gaya bhai)
8. While giving directions you say right/left maaro aur yaahan pe ek bridge Girega
9. No salsa, hiphop, moon walk, B'boying or jazz can beat our visarjan dance.
10. No starbucks flavored coffee can beat of our own cutting chai/ coffee.
11. We dont understand "humko and tumko". We prefer "tereko and mereko"

What India, you should go and see Mumbai…My grandmother said first after returning from Mumbai, soon after marriage. Grandfater was in military and posted in Colaba when they had got married. There is yet another story narrated by my Muttachan, that comes to my mind on seeing the Taj,
Once when Tata, had been to a good hotel, they read a boad ‘No entry for dogs, and Indians’, the incident made him feel bad, and he was so determined that he started this hotel. I am not sure if the story is right or wrong.


It is said that Mumbai or Mauth sey Koye nahi lauttha. There are many people who on landing to Mumbai set a time frame to retun back to their home town but can never do that, whether it be Sharuk Khan, for whom Delhi is the place for Dil walas, or be it Jayan Chettan, whose plan was to return by 2000, but there is no chance he would return in next 20 years. But my father belived:
‘Happy the man, whose wish and care,
Few paternal acres bound,
Content to breath his own air,
On his own ground’
And hence returned to Gods own country.