On returning to the city after four years, I’m happy to know I still belong. When I am here, something kicks in, enabling me to easily slip into gear; I know how to conduct myself and how to talk to whom
I think Mumbai demands your attention and your presence in a way few other cities do. Representation Pic/Pradeep Dhivar
It’s hard to fathom I’m writing this dispatch in the same time zone as you, my reader. After four years, I am back in Mumbai. Yesterday, as I sat in the rickshaw wolfing down two samosas, I genuinely had the sensation of never having left at all. I recognised this feeling from my frequent returns while I was a student at JNU, Delhi. It has everything to do with the omnipresent sign that has marked the city for decades, “Mumbai is upgrading.” I have always been on the lookout for that elusive moment when the upgrade is actually complete, but yesterday I realised this is the hallmark of Mumbai living, there is never closure because 25 new projects are kickstarted while the one is still underway. Our taxi driver felt flabbergasted by the traffic from the airport to Kurla. He was constantly counting down, afraid he might run out of fuel. He told me he’d have to wait in queue after our ride to refill.
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I felt little temptation to make longer journeys after that long ride. I’m still getting my bearings being here with our toddler who, I have to remind myself, has until now only known the privileges of the first world. I see his eyes struggle to take it all in, as if he’s in a giant object search book unable to focus because there’s an overabundance of stimulation. I now understand that I grew up believing the world around me was ‘normal’. I’m not suggesting it’s not, but that I could barely conceive of realities outside of those I knew. For my toddler, it’s “full on”. When we walk on the footpath, we have him perched against our backs in a wrap because it’s not easy to navigate a stroller through rocky footpaths. What surprises me is how, after all these years of absence, I am able to easily slip into gear and be a Mumbaikar, as if something in my DNA is activated by my being here. I know, in my gut, how to be, how to conduct myself, how to talk to whom, especially when it comes to getting bureaucratic work done, which is a significant reason for our being here.
What I’d forgotten about or hadn’t quite considered enough was how unbelievably wonderful and friendly people are; how easy it is to strike up a conversation; how eager fellow Mumbaikars are to help each other out. Yesterday, as I was running from pillar to post, passport office to BMC office to police station, I found I was genuinely surprised by how eager people were to help me. It’s so easy for something to not be anyone’s business, but people suddenly get invested in your life, even if only for a few minutes, to help you figure out a problem or help you find ways around an obstacle.
In my personal writing, I’ve spoken a lot about the notion of “forced resilience”. How people who must navigate extenuating circumstances on a regular, daily basis, feel compelled to be resilient, to fight the urge towards being defeatist. I call the resilience “forced” because it stems from a structural dearth of choices. In my house, we always uttered this saying, ‘If you can live in Mumbai, you can live anywhere in the world’. I know for a fact that the reason why my life in Italy feels so charmed is because my whole life I’ve been accustomed to making do with very little. I remember waking up early in the morning while I was in JNU so I could fill a bucket of water which was my quota for the day. I was thinking about it yesterday as I was introducing my toddler to the concept of a bucket bath.
It’s a world apart from the bathtub baths, he has at my in-laws’ apartment, where water is in abundance and the bathroom is the size of a one-room apartment in Mumbai. He is unsure about my reasons for not letting him run the tap endlessly, but he’s getting into the spirit of it and is even bathing himself. I just stand at the back and supervise.
Yesterday morning I took him to our school compound, an experience he enjoyed. I ran into the few people still there who remember me. One of them was the beautiful Lucy Balan. I told her how I live in a border region and have had to learn two new languages. She said she was not at all surprised by my acuity. I always had a flair for languages. It was ironic that Miss Varsha popped by just then! She was the “academic advisor” assigned to me because I’d cited Marathi as my weakest subject. She was so warm and friendly. She must be the reason why I continue to be able to understand the language fluently even though I hesitate to speak it because of my anxiety around my low command of its grammar.
Just two days in and I’ve already experienced so much, not to mention being fodder for nighttime mosquitoes. I’m still wrapping my head around the fact that I’m here, and this weird sensation that all the time that elapsed since my last being here is some sort of hazy dream. I think Mumbai demands your attention and your presence in a way few other cities do. I am happy to confidently still belong.
Deliberating on the life and times of Everywoman, Rosalyn D’Mello is a reputable art critic and the author of A Handbook For My Lover. She tweets @RosaParx
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The views expressed in this column are the individual’s and don’t represent those of the paper.
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