Bombay Meri Jaan

Celebrating a city like none other

Photographs by Namas Bhojani

Don't get me wrong. This is only to emphasise the uncomplicated class structure around which the city has been built. When you first begin to use the suburban rail system, you understand what this means. External signals of who you are -- air pump shoes, gold plated watches or caste marks on the forehead -- mean nothing. You get compacted in the inhuman crush of warm bodies, your senses drowning in waves of nausea.

When I began to use the rail system regularly, I hated it. I still do. In a way, my unabated hatred for the suburban rail system -- an unavoidable part of the city for most -- makes me a good Bombaywallah. It also helps me understand the city.

Bombay's rail transport presents a spectacular snapshot of the city. Not many years ago, George Fernandes, one of the better known ministers of railways, pointed out that the Indian Railways have very strict regulations when it comes to the transportation of animals. How many cows, buffaloes, goats and donkeys will travel in a specific wagon is carefully laid down in the rule books. Breach of these rules in an offence under the railways' own disciplinary procedures. But there are no guidelines for the transportation of humans.

Between four rail 'corridors' - the longest stretching to Kasara, 120 km from the city - about 5,700,000 passengers are ferried every single day by the Central and Western railways. That's roughly the equivalent of transporting the entire population of Bangalore or all the people of Jaipur, Lucknow and Pune put together. Trains meant to carry a mere 1,800 passengers are crammed with over 4,000.

A ten-minute delay in the schedule of a train in peak hours results in doubling the pressure of commuters. Crowding is so dense that there are 12 passengers to a square metre, leaving the suburban rail system without parallel anywhere in the world.

Dr P S Pasricha, who was once the traffic commissioner of Bombay, says that on weekday mornings 30 people come out of Churchgate and Victoria Terminus (now known as Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus) stations every second. Work out the maths: it's like spewing out a small town of about 1,00,000 people each hour.

In these abnormally packed trains the Bombaywallah has developed his own social routines. Women trade gossip and groups of men indulge in high-stakes gin rummy. The devout unpack small idols of divinity from their briefcases, smear them with vermilion paste and sing bhajans.

Entire compartments join in, slapping seats and doors to provide the fierce rhythms that accompany the chanting of bhajans and kirtans. Prasad is distributed, just as you might expect in the grandest temples across India. All the interactions of small communities are played out in these hyper-crammed trains that serve the purpose of courtyards and parks rolled into one.

The highly compressed social and physical environment is a tinderbox, waiting to ignite and explode. Fights break out easily in the airless heat of rail compartments. Delays in the arrival of a train can unleash impatient mobs. During these brief surges of violence, entire stations have been vandalised within minutes. No writer, film-maker or news reporter can capture this indefinable life and what it does to the city: it creates primordial conditions, leaving Bombay to become a city of strong and determined people.

Writer Charles Allen has worked out a theory which can't be argued. He said that most of Bombay's problems were caused by success, just as Calcutta's were caused by failure. Wherever I've gone, said Charles Allen, I've seen a determination to survive; and if Bombay survives, can India be far behind?

What may appear to be a rhetorical question, isn't really one. In fact, the answer may provide insights into Bombay's unique character. Bombay survives because when you make this city your own, you stop being a Bengali or a Gujarati. You become a Bombaywallah whose sole purpose in life is the quest of success and the celebration of life. A Bombaywallah rarely, if ever, talks about 'back home' or his 'native place'. Bombay becomes his home. The rest of India may always lag behind, because the movers and shakers have migrated to this town, sustaining the alchemy of success.

To me Bombay is home, as critical to my life as family and friends; it has helped me survive, grow and celebrate. It is my life blood, meri jaan. And so it is, happily, to 14.5 million others.

Excerpted from Bombay: A Contemporary Account of Mumbai Namas Bhojani, Arun Katiyar, HarperCollins, 1996, Rs 2,500/ US $ 70, with the publisher's permission. Readers who wish to buy the book may contact Ashwini Bhatia, HarperCollins India, 7/16, Ansari Road, Daryaganj, New Delhi 110002, tel # 011-3278586, 011-3272161, fax # 011-3277294.

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