Metro Madness

Much has been written, discussed, debated, praised and shredded about India. Indian nationals, who have been ‘patriotic’ to their “motherland”, have expressed their views more frequently than the appearance of a turban in Jaisalmer. Be it about how rich the nation is with its cultural heritage, religious diversities and patriots; or the rising behemoth of an economy, intellectual capital and the innumerable hands that build IT parks all over the metros. One metro that gets inevitably featured in such contexts is Bombay… sorry, Mumbai… let’s call it Bombay… no, it is now Mumbai… whatever!

The map of Mumbai looks like a fossilized snake from the Mesozoic Age. Despite various demerits, the city attracts people in drones in the same way it multiplies the number of slum dwellers, diseases and street side hawkers.

The past few days for a Mumbai dweller have been action-packed. Even plump housewives and their pot bellied husbands have been literally half mooned by an invisible force of the city to get their lazy bones, on the verge of osteoporosis, out of their warm couches. The city has been swept away in a deluge of celebrations. Fortunately, this time around rain has no part in it!

Ganesh Utsav heralds and celebrates the benevolence and grandeur of the elephant headed God. In Mumbai, the festivities celebrated for over 2 weeks resemble a fête with a string of drums played to successfully damage ear drums of human beings up to 10 miles. Those who play them, of course, do not fall under this category.

What would a procession be without explosive lighting equipment? My answer- a normal one. But the city apparently differs with me as I happened to encounter an idol illuminated by 10 suns. Or so it seemed for a small crowd that had temporarily spared themselves the gift of blindness by shutting their eyes as tight as Catwoman’s leather outfit. Participants, organizers and the crowd gathered have this compulsive need to prove that culture is not being eroded in the midst of all this hoopla. The best way to demonstrate it to all the TV cameras trained on them – spray colors of red, pink and orange in the air, on faces and sometimes on an odd clueless tourist with a digital camera. That the tourist will have to buy a new camera is totally irrelevant, though. Crackers, group of people dancing in trance or under influence, form yet another aspect of this spectacle.

A 15 day religious carnival of sorts comes to an end with the idol immersion in the sea, rivulet or even a large rain-water collected pond- depending on the size of the idol. Nobody really bothers about the day after. The municipal corporation which is mostly visible on such days turns up in huge vans to clear roads, alleys and beaches. As for the political sponsors, who have a field day at garnering awe and exposure find it most convenient to leave it to the cleaners or just harsh weather to clear their banners that hang from post to post. They seem to strictly believe in division of labor and specialization!

All the above would have been just fine had it been yet another uneventful year. But India also spins into frenzy whenever there is talk of a game adopted from the colonial times – Cricket. Such excitement is, therefore, completely unexpected when the team, which has been out of form since a very long time, loses and returns home. Effigies are burnt, roads are blocked for a day, and some underperformers’ houses are either pelted or blackened to mourn the loss without much pomp.

Now what happens when such a team goes to a new format World Cup and wins the Championship Trophy during the very same week as the Ganesh Utsav? For starters, offices close early, people find time from religion, stock market and household banter and honor sports channels giving high TRPs for re-runs of the same match. Channels start recruiting more people to cover both events and the Programming Executive spends sleepless nights on prioritizing the two events! Crackers bought for the festival are burst to serve dual purpose and processions to celebrate both the events get inflated by the participants’ heads. The stock market soars to all time highs while speculators keep figuring what next.

For the otherwise crowded streets of this metro, double barreled events bring with them more substance, content, coverage, noise and many more traffic jams. People swing from street to street hoping for more reasons to rationalize the purpose and find company for such insanity. I call it the Mumbai metro madness.

(September 26, 2007)