An Indian. And an Ocean called Mumbai. Part I.

If I had any talent, I would have come up with a title far less corny than the one I have, for my first post in nine months. But somehow, it doesn’t seem to matter.

What is it that I love so much about Mumbai? Why is it that the first time I stepped into Mumbai post my Second Birth (a concept that I shall explain later), I felt a karmic connection with the City?

I still remember that day, the day of my karmic connection. It was in August 2001.

I was with my favourite person in the world. Dad and I walked a lot. I could not understand why everything was just so monstrously large in this city. We had naan and delicious chicken curry and some tea in a tiny little Irani café.

I was excited throughout, because I saw that the title track of K3G was available on cassettes and CDs. That was a new concept altogether. Not the whole album - just the title track and an instrumental. There were still four months to go for the release of the film and two months for the full album release. Even the promos of the film were not on air yet. I was thrilled. I felt like asking Dad to buy it. I didn’t.

However, the image of the K3G preview cassette stuck. I was amazed at how Mumbai had something that Pune did not - the first that I found, of many.

I continued walking behind Dad. We reached The Gateway of India. What an awe-inspiring first sight it was! I was already a die-hard patriot by then, so one can imagine how ‘The Gateway of India’ would have sounded to me. I gazed and gazed at it. And then I turned around. There it was. The Taj Mahal Hotel. I’d heard so many stories about it, that it had assumed mythical notions in my head. And here I was, about to enter The Taj. (It never struck me back then. Now, however, just as I typed it out, I realized that at the age of 15, I entered The Taj Mahal Hotel on my own steam. An entrance test that I was selected for. I did not walk in like a wannabe, the way so many people do. Hmmm... Maybe I’m not as useless as I think I am. Wait a minute. I digressed from what I was saying, and then digressed from the digression! Back to Square One! I am as useless as I think I am!)

So, what is it about Mumbai that makes me love it so unconditionally? How is it possible that I know Mumbai, where I have spent a miniscule amount of time, relatively better than Pune, where I have lived for 20 years? Why is it that I feel I love Mumbai more than anyone else does?

Is it because the Hindi film industry is centered here? This is where all the films that made me the man I am have been made. Amitabh Bachchan and Shahrukh Khan, the two biggest icons in my life, call Mumbai ‘home’. They can afford any place in the world, and they can afford traveling from that place to Mumbai for work as often as they need to. Still, Mumbai is their home. So yeah, perhaps cinema is the reason why Mumbai means what it does to me?

No. It is a huge factor, true. But as I write this, I know deep down that that is not the reason.

Then, is Marine Drive, by far my favourite spot in the world, the reason? The sight of that amazing arc, leading to the rest of the city, the sunset at Marine Drive, the famous skyline that one can see from there at night (which to me is actually surpassed by the skyline visible at dawn), the gentle waves, those weird gigantic manmade tetrahedral stones, the sight of Wankhede on one side and Brabourne on the other, the pavement which is as wide as the road, the presence of a Naturals – I don’t know what makes that place so special to me. Perhaps it is the combination of all these, with the sound of Indian Ocean’s Kandisa in my ears. Indian Ocean’s music is magical to the point of being almost spiritual. Marine Drive is like a dream, a state of euphoria. The combination, well, is God.

No, Marine Drive is not the reason. God is The Foundation, not The Reason.

In fact, Marine Drive, unparalleled in my opinion, and often used as ‘the picture of Mumbai’, can never truly represent Mumbai. It represents the elite - people who can drop a thousand-rupee note and not bother to pick it up. It represents those who pretend as if they don’t see the people who sleep on the pavement at Marine Drive, because they do not have anywhere else to sleep, those who pretend as if people don’t bathe in the waters in crevices under the monstrous tetrahedrons. Marine Drive, the place I like the most in the world, actually represents people who would laugh at me if they knew how much it meant to me. They would laugh because I am a Nobody. Actually, they wouldn’t even laugh at me. They would pretend like I don’t exist, like they pretend people who sleep, bathe, eat and defecate at Marine Drive don’t exist. I am digressing again. Let me get back.

Well, if it isn’t the film industry, and if it isn’t Marine Drive, then what is it? Perhaps a better approach would be to eliminate all things bad about Mumbai, so that I am left with only good things? Maybe the sum total of those good things will be the answer, or at the very least, will lead me to it?

PS – Part II of this post may never come. Or it may come tomorrow. It depends on the response to Part I.