TO WHOM DOES MUMBAI BELONG???

I have been waiting to express myself on this point since some time now. The wait was there because one, I wanted to gather my thoughts; two, I wanted all the hullabaloo around this issue to quieten to some extent and then splash my thoughts out here.

I am neither anti nor pro the clashing camps. I write as a Mumbaikar- an ordinary, train/ bus/ auto rickshaw commuter class person so I speak solely for myself and my life in Mumbai. Here's my take on "Who does Mumbai belong to?".

I would like to put forth a couple of things first.

The ongoing rate for owning a 1 BHK flat in Kandivli East where I live is anywhere around 36 lacs and onwards but not less.
A huge number of people from Mumbai or people planning to settle down in Mumbai are now buying houses in Mira Road/ Vasai/ Virar/ Kharghar (places outside Mumbai) since buying a house in Mumbai is out of bounds for most people. A lot of these guys, FYI, earn upwards of net Rs. 50,000 p.m. A decent percentage of them draw salaries ranging from 1-2 lacs p.m. To quote some people like my husband, even if one can afford a house that is worth a crore or over, does it make sense to take a huge loan and pay 2 and half times the principle amount to the bank?! You are never going to make money from it if you plan to live in Mumbai in that house cause all your life you will live there and not rent it out or sell it. With that kind of money you will pay the bank you will not be able to buy another house. So... you part with a big chunk of your money just to live in a supposedly central or happening place in Mumbai. Its fine for a rich businessman but not for others, especially a salaried person... it just doesn't make business sense!

I will not get into further numbers and thus calculations but my point here is that living in Mumbai is getting outrageously expensive and tiring (when you commute from one end of the city to another). To meet the crazy demand for houses and make big bucks, the developers and builders are not even sparing salt pans/ forests/ mangroves/ dried-up rivers etc. Nor do they want to cut down their huge profit margins (Its better not to guess what their profit margins are cause they are astounding).

In this chaos, Mumbai keeps receiving migrants from all over the country and neighbouring countries (As labour hands and terrorists). The migrants who come to work here come to Mumbai for a better life, to live and to become successful. As an ever growing metropolis Mumbai needs as many people as possible because we the office-goers are not going to erect buildings or make roads and flyovers or be able to do other small, odd jobs etc., we need people for these jobs who are definitely not going to be well educated or contribute much financially.

And despite all the problems we Mumbaikars face due to huge numbers migrating in I maintain that an Indian cannot and should not be stopped from living and working anywhere in the country.

Now, that we have all the basic points in place- about Mumbai, migrants, cost of living etc. I wonder, "How much burden can Mumbai can take?!"

I am not against people migrating to Mumbai but we Mumbaikars who belong to diverse castes/ religions/ backgrounds definitely do not want more people to add on to the already burgeoning and biologically multiplying populace. We do not want anyone due to whom we will lose our salt pans, our open spaces, our forest covers. We do not want the Land mafia to perpetuate, we do not want to give politicians ready-vote-banks only to get to power and not do what they are elected for, we do not want to pay our hard-earned money for stolen electricity/ water etc. We do not want slums to get bigger than they already are, we do not want slums to occupy our roads, we do not want to see people defecating by the roads and railway lines. There is a lot more we do not want people to do to our Mumbai. This is a city of Dreams and not a toilet-cum-garbage-can!

Why can't there be such a system in place such that the labour class is organised. Such that they are registered, can move around working in various cities where there is any kind of construction work and when there is no work or not much work they can return to their towns and villages where they can be employed in cottage industries or farming activities. If there is a fixed systematic plan in place, they will get the right wages, they will be recognised, they can be trained from time to time, plus they will have a better quality of life. That way they will not be a burden on the city infrastructure as well.

There is middle and upper-middle class influx too. I would just urge these people to work out the pros and cons before moving to a city like Mumbai where more people means more difficulty at every step, its not as beautiful as it looks from afar. It gets ugly, there is a fight for every breath you take, for every standing space even!

AND MOST IMPORTANTLY WE DO NOT WANT MUMBAI TO BECOME SO CRAZILY EXPENSIVE TO LIVE IN THAT THE RICH, RICHER AND THE RICHEST AND THE POOREST ALONE CAN LIVE IN MUMBAI!!!

My heart does go out to those those people who are not left with much choice but to migrate to Mumbai and other metros despite the pathetic living conditions they would have here.
To add on to the civic problems our politicians have failed to protect our land from terror attacks. So, can we still say, "Saare Jahan Se Achha Hindustan Hamara..."

I am not saying that politicians do nothing at all. Running the country is greatly more difficult than it seems. What I say here is that even after filling their coffers and ensuring the best future for their kith and kin why cannot they put a strong system in place?! Is it that difficult with the help of the best brainss in the world?! We all know that the world is in awe of the Indian diaspora and the rest of us back here definitely share similar genetic stuff... if they can help build economies, infrastructure and solid systems abroad can't we do the same here?!

In places where there are opportunities for everyone, no one and nothing is a burden. E.g. In a family where its only the woman of the house who is left to do all the work, is not fed properly and is treated badly by the other family members is bound to fall sick, run away to another man or even contemplate suicide because her parents cannot take her in, there is no place for her to return to and even if she does she may face harder times. So, she needs a caring, loving and supportive family. Apply this to people and you will know why they migrate to cities even if they are not willing to. Some are fortunate to create opportunitites for themselves in their land but some others just have to move on. Good and equal opportunities have to be created. And only opportunities for a good life in every place can ensure that the cities are not over-burdened.

Coming back to the city civic issues, the government has plans under SRA for the slum dwellers and I am sure the slums are not going to grow more anyway, they just can't under the given conditions. Reasons being; the cost of living, developers/ builders grabbing every possible area, land mafia with its eye on BMC land turning it into commercial space, it does not look like slums can expand any further. However, we must all continue striving to protect our forest cover by ensuring that the encroachments are under check. The BMC should be very proactive and ensure that the Land mafia does not prosper by grabbing our open lands and we too should be vigilant and report to the civic authorities.

And we as citizens of Mumbai should be watchdogs and see to it that enough space remains in the city for the rain water to move into and recede into the sea and is not gobbled up by developers and builders.

There is a lot that needs to be done... just talking will not help. A lot of us do things to help our city, lets do it more responsibly and proactively, let no one have to ask us, lets just do it, for our sake. BTW this applies to me as well.

Emotionally, I can very well understand why people fall in love with this city and make it their home. Its the freedom to live on your own terms, having the financial freedom, the freedom to love, the freedom to be yourself and have your own unique identity, to fly like a free bird in the open sky. And an ever-changing, interesting and fast paced lifestyle. But times are changing and fast...

I am born and brought up in Mumbai so I know, its now become a bugeoning, crazy megapolis where you put up a fight for everything... from admissions to jobs to commuting to even entry into clubs! But I am so in love with my birthplace, I have never known life apart or away from it. "Jeena yahan, marna yahan, iske siwa jaana kahaan?"

And I love all the people who I have made friends with who are not from here but have made Mumbai what it is alongwith me. However, I still urge my fellow Indians to create great opportunities all around and make our entire country a happy and prosperous place to live in. That way all of us can live in any part of the country and there will be no battle for any one or couple of places.

On a lighter note, a good number of our countrymen are abroad and many more on their way there, lets persuade even more people to go. That way, it will be our turn to rule other countries, like they ruled us but we'll use democracy and other politically correct stuff to do that! LOL... ;)

Now, to answer the question, "To whom does Mumbai belong?" It belongs to every Indian (Also to those from other countries who love Mumbai).

And in current times, to every person who can fight it out and stay put here.

MUMBAI BELONGS TO THE FITTEST!!! LOL...!

:)

A little sorry note

The poem at the end is a dedication and a little 'sorry' to someone, written by me way back in time.

In life we meet many people, we make lots of friends, some touch our hearts in a special way and very few make a place for themselves 'there', forever. And when its time to part ways we should strive to keep it amicable because the precious memories we made with these special people in our lives ought to remain special and add on to our 'sweet-memory bank'.

And in the life after we have moved on our separate ways; we can always sit back and unlock each sweet memory, relish each one like a sweet, juicy fruit on a hot summer day. When times are hard and the going is slow its each one of these memories that will act like a morale booster. It will put a smile on your face, give you the strength to move on, it will tell you that you have been good and deserve much more (good).

And think about it, we are all human and we err and more than that we have a life that cannot just stand there. So forgive, forget and move on. Make each of your relationships a special one :)


I cry for the times I made you cry
When I gave you tears not that of Joy
I sit back and think how you might have felt
At those times when I loved you
And knew not what it meant

:)

A Holiday find so powerfully & magically weaved into my Heart that it has not left me ever since...

While holidaying in Pune as my hubby & I strolled around Deccan, he spotted a Book fair (The owner imports second-hand international books). One of the books that caught my attention there was 'The Joy Luck Club' by Amy Tan about the lives of 4 Chinese women in pre-1949 China and the lives of their American-born daughters in California.

The cover-back said- "Amy Tan's brilliant novel flits in and out of many realities but all of them contain mothers and daughters... Each story is a fascinating vignette and together they weave the reader through a world where the Moon Lady can grant any wish, where a child at two and delivered at 12, can, with cunning, free herself; where a rich man's concubine secures her daughter's future by killing herself and where a woman can live on, knowing she has lost her entire life".

Each mother- daughter story in this book reminds me of different facets of my relationship with my mother. Outwardly, mothers love their sons more but inwardly their relationship with their daughters is special, very special. A mother knows that men are weak and so they need their mothers or wives even more than a daughter would need her mother and she also knows that she has given all her strength to her daughter while she was still in her womb. A mother may not tell her daughter that she is always there for her but will always be there for her daughter, no matter how cross she is with her daughter. However much a daughter thinks her mother is incapable of understanding her, deep within she knows that her mother can read her like a book. The daughter is afraid that what her mother observes or remarks might be true or might come true in the future. That's not all about how they are linked.

When a daughter is born the mother sees it as another life to be what she herself couldn't be, to do what she in her life couldn't do, to save her child from what she couldn't save herself, to achieve the goals and live the life that she couldn't. All her hopes and ambitions come alive on seeing her daughter's lovely face for the first time when she is also trying to see if her daughter looks like anything she had an image of in her own mind and from that moment itself she is a proud mother of a daughter even before the daughter can open her little eyes or do anything to make her mother proud.

Every mother sees herself in her daughter and when the daughter starts seeing herself in her mother is when she has truly understood her mother and is able to heal her mother.

As children a lot of us may have felt ashamed of our parents'/ mother's broken English/ Hindi, the way they dressed or the way they spoke to us in front of our friends. A lot of us must have been ashamed of the way our homes looked or the way it was done up. At times I too was guilty of feeling one of these things and then I would reprimand myself for thinking like that and remind myself that no matter what I love my Mom the way she is and no one on the Earth can replace her. My mother lost her mother very early in life and all she wanted when she became a mother was to be there with us at every step, she wanted to give all she never got. To me, she is the best Mom on Earth and she is my Mom!

However much I'd like to keep going on I cannot cause all said and done each one of us knows the importance and the meaning of having a mother in our lives. And since I need to end this post somewhere I will end it with an excerpt from the book, the first page of 'The Joy Luck Club'.

The old woman remembered a swan she had bought many years ago in Shanghai for a foolish sum. This bird, boasted the market vendor, was once a duck that stretched its neck in the hopes of becoming a goose, and now look!- it is too beautiful to eat.
Then the woman and the swan sailed across an ocean many thousands of li wide, stretching their necks towards America. On her journey she cooed to her swan: "In America I will have a daughter just like me. But over there nobody will say her worth is measured by the loudness of her husband's belch. Over there nobody will look down on her, because I will make her speak only perfect American English. And over there she will always be too full to swallow any sorrow! She will know my meaning, because I will give her this swan- a creature that became more than what was hoped for."
But when she arrived in the new country, the immigration officials pulled her swan away from her, leaving the woman fluttering her arms and with only one swan feather for a memory. And then she had to fill out so many forms she forgot why she had come and what she had left behind.
Now the woman was old. And she had a daughter who grew up speaking only English and swallowing more Coca-Cola than sorrow. For a long time now the woman had wanted to give her daughter the single swan feather and tell her, "This feather may look worthless, but it comes from afar and carries with it all my good intentions." And she waited year after year, for the day she could tell her daughter this in perfect American English.


I love you Mamma!!! :)

Not much of an intro

Hi! Welcome to UFTs (Unidentified Flying Thoughts) of my Mind!

Well, as the name suggests I plan to put (down) my thoughts up here ;) which is slightly difficult for a talkative person like me. This is so because as most 'talkatives' will agree, a talkative person's mind is like a freeway of zipping thoughts and he/ she simply uses his/ her vocal chords at a slightly lesser speed than that of the speeding thoughts to make them verbal.
Now its an uphill task to grab each one and write about it or elaborate, "@#$%"! (YAWN)
So here I endeavour to help my friends read (hear) my thoughts at their leisure ;)
My friends from College and some others I met at work will agree to wishing they had this comfort during out 'active' acquaintance- friendship days... LOL :)

BEWARE! UFTs AHEAD!!

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Read (on) at your own risk.
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