Opinion Stardust vs Raj Thackeray

But if you ask me which city makes it easiest to dream,I’d be a liar if I named any other than Bombay-Mumbai. No other city has as much stardust. It’s everywhere,that shiny,seductive,spellbinding sprinkle — in the most hellishly crowded local,in a quiet,leafy Bandra corner,in a gulli full of namkeen in Lower Parel,in a small restaurant at Kemps Corner,in noisy Crawford Market,even in the staid patches of Navi Mumbai. And always,always,on any stretch of Marine Drive,where the sight and sound of the infinite sea washes everything away. Even “seditious” cartoonists being hauled off to jail,frequent communal riots and the horrendous increase in regional chauvinism and parochialism.

Like many others who had a relationship with Bombay before it became Mumbai,my reaction to it is bifurcated: before I became a film critic,and that is something I have been for a long time now,I viewed Bombay as scores have before me. A city which was,in the truest senses,a city,not a cluster of villages trying to forge an identity,a city that spoke of mercantile might and overarching business acumen that made it the financial capital of the country. But over the years,I have come to look upon the city as a place where movies are made,where craft is manufactured,and where magic is created,on an industrial scale. This is the Bombay-Mumbai of Bollywood,which pre-liberalisation could properly have been called the Hindi cinema belt. But now gets its heft from the reviled-but-aptly named Bollywood,which is not just a physical space like its western counterpart,Hollywood. It is an idea made flesh,which gives the city its special air. And its special power. The Bombay-Mumbai that exists today has been shaped and defined by Bollywood. If there were no Bollywood,there would be no Bombay-Mumbai. Or at least not the city we know now.

The island state of Mumbadevi can be called whatever it wants. Bombay. Bambai. Mumbai. But my question to you is this: can you think of Bombay/ Mumbai without Bollywood? Or vice versa? No. The two are not interchangeable,but they are inextricable. Here live the people who are the lodestars of viewers all over the world. It matters not if they live in the Rajani-worshipping south,or the “adda”-and-Ray loving east,or in nostalgia-driven NRI pockets abroad: Hindi cinema and its stars unify the country like no other force. Except perhaps cricketers. But even they have to be actors these days,and take to the screen and sell themselves.

So where did the periodic “hum Mumbaikar tum nahin (we are Mumbaikars,not you)” come from? Why this outcry of Bom-Bom-Bombay “meri hai,teri nahin (mine,not yours)”? In the 1970s,people of south Indian origin were targeted,and asked to leave Bombay. Migrants from the north were the next to be identified. Much of this venom is spewed by the Shiv Sena and its acolytes,who want Mumbai to be only for the “original” Mumbaikars. The relentless push to oust “outsiders” is slowly but steadily trying to steer the only world city India possesses into dismal provincialism. Those who dare speak out are reviled and intimidated. Top Bollywood stars have learnt to keep their counsel (some are openly seen to be toeing the Sena line and obeying its edicts): they have come to recognise that being vocally political can cause them and their films harm.

But,and this is an irony worthy of the movies,I believe that it is the very existence of Bollywood that keeps the dark forces at bay. That it is a binding force that glues together the city,which is constantly being battered from all sides. The entertainment industry is a huge workplace with an insatiable appetite for the new and the enthusiastic. They keep flooding in,and they keep getting taken in. You may not automatically be the next Shah Rukh Khan or Ranbir Kapoor because you do not know the password to those doors,and may never will,but you will get something to do,even if it is to warm the seat of your favourite Andheri-Lokhandwala-Bandra coffee shop waiting for that elusive break. This hope,eternal and springing,is what has kept Bombay-Mumbai from collapsing on itself. And this is precisely what will keep it going. Because we all need stories. We need to be other people. We need to be entertained.

Bollywood is located within Bombay-Mumbai. But that Bollywood is a finite combine of studios and stars and technicians and machinery. The Bollywood we all own plays in a constant loop in a theatre that we buy tickets to. Ergo,the Bombay-Mumbai that gives us Bollywood is ours. So how can it be the property of only some people? It’s not maximum city for nothing. Though it’s bursting at the seams,it sort of shakes itself and keeps making room. Because for those of us who want to make ourselves anew,Bombay-Mumbai is the only place.

Hey you,yes you,you can be a star too. Why not? Anything is possible in the movies. And in Bombay-Bollywood-Mumbai,which belongs to us all.

shubhra.gupta@expressindia.com