Everything Everywhere All at Once
The title, perhaps, is an accurate summation of my impressions of Mumbai. Consider this blog a small digression from the content of the work to the context of the place that I find myself working in. It is also the context within which the work of Gender Based Violence Prevention is happening, and believe me, the place itself has it’s own set of challenges which are unique to the culture and society that grows around such a severely packed population center as Mumbai.
Of course, having grown up in India, my country comes back to me as easily as breathing. I feel at home but some part of me does feel amazed still! I think it always did. I never could normalize the levels of poverty that exist so casually side-by-side with everything else that all the rest of us possess, however much or little - it is more than the person who is living out their life on the street.
My level of prior experience with Mumbai was limited to one sole visit decades ago. At the time, I had a confused impression of skyscrapers and some beaches. Now, I feel like this truly is ‘the city that never sleeps.’ Driving down from the airport at 3.00am, I was surprised to see how many people were ‘going’ to work. Of course, a lot of people live on the streets, but these were people who were going to work at 3.00am, as the taxi driver told me. Once again, I am confronted by the sight of beggars with no limbs, women with little children (not unlike my own … actually very similar to my own little one) on their hip, begging at the cross lights, and once again I feel like it is cruel beyond anything I can express.
Yet, there is a real sense of energy and being on-the-go about this place. Talking about movement, there is a constant hum of traffic outside (and inside because it carries over), and the cacophony of horns never ceases. Having now tried the kali-peeli (black-yellow, i.e., taxi), three-wheeler (aka ‘rickshaw’), an uber, and walked around to the nearby baazars, I can say that noise pollution just is - it is a fact of life. Skyscrapers right next to low lying buildings, all of which look like they are in acute need of exterior paint, make up the sprawl of this city.
Every bit of green, every decorated balcony looks beautiful.
It is truly a ‘sprawl’ in that there has been no urban planning at all. As I was talking with a Professor of Urban Planning at the time that I was observing this messy city yesterday, he agreed that this sprawl is just a testimony to the sheer rapacity of human beings, those who wield power for their own benefit at any cost. A real lack of public spirited planning (for this city) at the government, individual and corporate level.
It does, at some level (though I can see how it has played out) amaze me that with the huge amount of wealth that is concentrated in this city, there is so little city planning done. Green spaces are so hard to come by, but I appreciate every little balcony that has made a valiant effort to green it’s few square feet. It is not that nature will not take hold here - it will sink in easily, but there is no place. That said, looking out of my hotel window I see tall trees that have rooted themselves into the soil and are not going anywhere, rather like many of the denizens of this city. They too are dusty and careworn. Only unlike the people, the trees stand rooted. They watch over the early (if you can call 8.00am early) morning joggers/walkers who are working their way down the pedestrian side of the bypass to get their exercise.
View from my hotel window. And yes, that is an appropriate place to get your morning walk in Mumbai.
Only a brief visit to Dharavi yesterday, but today and tomorrow I will be traveling with SNEHA staff into Mumbai’s slums and seeing the work they have done. They were telling me how people come from the West to ‘see’ the slums. There are actually tours being offered. They were a bit surprised themselves when they said that some of the tourists actually pull aside the flimsy curtain (that serves for the door) to see how someone’s home is arranged inside. I am not sure about this kind of tourism and while it is good to educate oneself about the world, it is good also to know our own intentions and motivations. If some benefit can come of our knowledge, it is worthwhile to gather it. If we are simply gathering experiences and places to fill our own emptiness, then perhaps one should refrain from pulling aside the curtain off other people’s painstakingly arranged lives.
There are many things about this crazy city that I have left unsaid and many that I don’t know and may never fully understand, but that is not surprising. I hope you could for a minute imagine the strange, tiring mix that is Mumbai - a city of millions on the go, rushing to their destinations but really, just going about their lives.
