When Mumbai is wounded, India aches

Nevertheless, it was a fascinating experience. Because Mumbai has no parallel; it is breathtakingly beautiful, truly cosmopolitan and has welcomed over the decades different kinds of peoples from all over the world.

When the two terrible bombs exploded in the metropolis on August 25, I was reminded of how London took the Hitlerian V1 and V2 bombs. For some time there was panic but then, as during the World War II, the people of Mumbai behaved as Londoners did; bombs fell on them but they proudly proclaimed that Londoners can take it. So did Mumbaiites, not only yesterday but in 1992-93 as well, when a major blast shattered hundreds of lives.

Lunatics may dream of destroying this heaven on earth, though it has become somewhat shabby and messy now; but the resilience that its citizens exhibited will never allow the demented to succeed. For centuries it has defied every move to undermine its greatness; its character is so strong, its grit so deep-rooted that whatever the odds and whatever the calamities, Mumbai continues to flourish.

Its beauty has to some extent been marred by the huge influx of immigrants. Slums have come up everywhere. More than 50 per cent of its population is housed in them. They pay no taxes and the unhygienic condition they live in is awful.

Still, there is something about Mumbai that is so warm and hospitable that from every corner of India, the young and the old just pour in, in search of jobs or to start a business, to become models or filmstars, to find some sort of life for themselves. As Jnanpith awardee Sardar Jafri once said, people did not mind leaving behind the evenings of Avadh and the mornings of Banaras to jostle and slog in Mumbai.

Mumbai’s past is as glorious as its present. Mahatma Gandhi started his Non-Cooperation Movement in 1920 from its maidans. Pherozeshah Mehta organised the inaugural session of the Indian National Congress here. Sarojini Naidu spent most of her time enjoying its lively environment.

Even George Bernard Shaw spent a few days at the city’s Taj Mahal Hotel while on a world tour. When someone asked him whether he would not like to go see the Taj Mahal, he replied, ‘‘This Taj and this city are good enough for me.’’

Artists love the city, some of the greatest painters are its products. So do poets, architects, writers and scholars who have made this their home. One doesn’t know exactly what inspires them — whether the sea, the liveliness of its mixed gathering, the showplaces, or the constant movement of people, irrespective of their caste or creed or their regional or even foreign affiliation. Once they reach Mumbai, all distinctions disappear; they belong to a family that has room for everyone.

Disturbances occasionally do take place, riots sometimes do occur, but they leave no scar. Romance is the life-breath of Mumbai. As for the beautiful damsels who give so much colour to the city, an Urdu poet has said:

Buta-nay Mumbai ka yeh husane bay-niqab Ahmaq, Bohot muahkil hai rehna Mumbai main paarsa ho kar.

The enchantingly unveiled beauty of the women in this city, It is indeed, difficult to lead a pious life in Mumbai.

And still, no one has cared less for it than India. Although India’ exchequer collects almost 40 per cent of its revenue from Mumbai, this city has come in for colossal neglect from the powers that be. India cannot be an economic power without Mumbai, but such is its misfortune that while it gives so much, it gets so little from its greatest beneficiaries.

And now Mumbai has been attacked in such a brutal manner by the new breed of inhuman murderers who should no more be allowed to run amuck, endangering the lives of innocent men, women and children. It is the duty of all those who live by Mumbai to gird up their loins and smash the network of the evil men.

As The Indian Express has so feelingly put it, ‘‘Mumbai cannot be, must not be, held hostage to the insanity of the faceless terror.’’ Those in charge of our destiny must realise that if Mumbai dies, Delhi cannot live.