Growing Up in Bombay

For me, it will always be Bombay. I grew up in Mumbai too, but first in Bombay, which was what stuck with me, and a bit of it remains in my mind even today.

Bombay has now become home to first-generation migrants to the city, like my parents. My father came to Bombay in the mid-80s. He was not different from the so many men already leaving Kerala for the Gulf. It was in some sense expected from the young people of Kerala at that time because Kerala could not offer them employment. My father probably had no choice but to move outside Kerala and look for work. But for my mother, her world changed when she moved with my father to a new city, which was so different from where she had grown up in so many ways. Recently, I asked her about it.

I asked her how she felt when she first came to Bombay, and she hated it. The language was not much of an issue because she had learnt Hindi in school and had the company of other Malayalees who had come to Bombay earlier. She said she initially hated the food. No amount of sugar in the Gajar ka Halwa could comfort her; she was reminded of the food she had left behind. Pooris and Rotis were avoided at social gatherings before she finally gave in and learned to make peace with them.

But then, when I asked her if she’d look forward to returning to Kerala often, she said that, on the contrary, just after around two years of moving to Bombay, she would be looking forward to returning to Bombay while in Kerala! She had somehow come to associate Bombay as her home now. It only took the convenience of an urban city and the hope her kids would grow up with access to a better education than what she had access to at home to make Bombay her home now (her words, not mine).

Later, when my father retired, and my parents got a home built in Kerala, she would still loathe moving to Kerala for extended periods. Her list of reasons for this hate would start with the easy access to markets she had at home, which were missing in Kerala. But that was, of course, just the start. She’d miss the company of her friends with whom she’d spend time every Saturday doing Yoga, and moving to Kerala for extended periods was clearly not worth it. The mobile network connectivity in our Kerala home was patchy. She had now grown to like pizzas that her kids had gotten her used to. Life in Kerala had many good things, but these did not include easy access to cheese-burst pizza.

But my parents still had a sense of home in Kerala; for me, it was in Bombay. Technically though, I grew up in the suburbs of Bombay. In fact, the place where I grew up was a part of the Thane district. But hey, it’s all Bombay to my relatives in Kerala or, frankly, to anyone among the millions who came to the city hoping for better employment like my father.

I first realised I was from Bombay when I moved out to my college in Ranchi. On the Hatia-LTT express, starting at 00:05, half-asleep uncles and aunties would ask me where my home was in Ranchi. I would then go on to tell them I stayed in Bombay and my college was in Ranchi, and they would be shocked to know someone from Mumbai was going to Ranchi to study!

Another moment of realisation was during the college freshers at NIFFT. As I introduced myself as belonging to Mumbai, some final-year from the corner of our auditorium shouted something. I met him later, and the first thing he asked was: “Tu Mumbai se hai toh humare logon ko marega kya?”

Of course, it was just ragging, and he wanted to make me uncomfortable. He turned out to be one of the good guys I met in NIFFT, but there was the stark realisation at that time that I was from Mumbai. I was from the city where North Indians (read people from UP and Bihar) were beaten up, the same demographic that made up the majority in a sarkari engineering college in Jharkhand, erstwhile Bihar.

But by the time I graduated, I had lost much of the Mumbai in my Hindi. My mother will ridicule me with: “Chai achi bani thi?” when once in a while I would let out Hindi when talking to her. I now strictly stick to Malayalam, of course.

Over the years, I have started understanding what it meant growing up in Bombay. For most people, Bombay is where they go for education or employment. They hate that people are not “friendly” in the way they are in Delhi or wherever they are from. My father would say that when someone got hit by a local train on the tracks, the train stopped, and someone in the coach would lament: “Isko yahi train mila kya marne ko?” (Why did he have to get hit by the train I’m taking).

People who are new to Bombay don’t get it. They think of this as impersonal or even inhuman in some sense, which it may very well be, but the reason for that lament is not the lack of empathy. It is the fear that if the 9:10 local is delayed, the 10:05 bus will be missed, the boss will probably not accept any excuses, and the guy may have to work extra hours, because of which he will miss the 17:10 Virar fast back home. And only Bombay folks know how difficult it gets to miss the local you usually take. Your friend, who you don’t know much about except that he gets down two stations before you every weekday when you two take the same local back home, will miss you. You will miss him too and all of this because your train is late now. “Chal, jane de, kal dekhenge”.

A few days ago, I was at a Doctor’s clinic. Since it was a public holiday, the usual appointment token system was not in use. There was one lady who was there before me. She was standing at the door waiting for the patient inside to come out and for her to rush in. It felt odd; why would she have to do something like claim her spot? In a moment, it became clear to me why she did that. While waiting for my turn, sitting on the chair in the waiting area, a guy came and went in directly to meet the doctor. Earlier, I would say something snarky or tell the person to wait for his turn. This time I didn’t. I was reminded that I was not in Bombay.

Later on the walk home, I wondered why this would have never happened in Bombay. Why were people back home sticklers for queueing up? Queue for auto, queue bus, queue for railway tickets. If you are new and don’t know, the people already in line will shout at you if you don’t follow the social order. Somehow, when embarrassed by the public reprimand, every newcomer learns to queue up.

Growing up in Bombay, I think, has given me unrealistic expectations that people will queue; they never do. I have not fully understood the connection between civic sense and Bombay. Why doesn’t this behaviour get reflected in any other city? Public spaces in Bombay may look chaotic, but they have a certain underlying rhythm that I have never seen in other cities I’ve been to.

I remember the first time I brought a first-class ticket. This has to be sometime after I started earning and was on a trip to Bombay from Bangalore. I would have had a misplaced sense of being rich because why else would I have brought a first-class ticket or, as someone from school would have said, “Mad or what?” Nobody buys a first-class ticket; you either get a pass (“season ticket”) or take the regular second-class ticket. I had rarely bought tickets, let alone a first-class ticket, because when I was travelling with family, my father would have his Indian Railways-issued ID, which served as a pass for all of us. Unlike my friends who took the train to college (i.e. 11 and 12, which is school for many but college or junior college for us), I took the BEST no. 703 bus to my college. But this time was different.

The ticket window is the same for first and second-class tickets, so if you want a first-class ticket, you directly walk up to the line and get it. I did just that, and before I could pay, someone yelled from the end of the line, “Malum nahi hai kya, line mein aane ka?”. Before I could say anything, one guy in line closer to the ticket window yelled back, “Arrey uska first-class ka ticket hai”. A self-correcting system of queuing up! It did not amaze me then, but it sure does now.

I went to Paris earlier this year, and while walking around, I told my wife how much Paris reminded me of Bombay. It could have been the architecture, the public transport or maybe the sheer joy of walking around the city and feeling its presence around me in a way that I never felt in Bangalore.

It took me a long time to understand my connection with Bombay and Mumbai and my sense of home. For many people, home is relaxing in the large houses, green surroundings, open fields, cold winters and comfort in the vicinity of their four walls. For me, it was always different. The crowded locals, queuing up, eating when walking up to somewhere, the humidity, everything.

Perhaps the tiny 800 sq. ft 2BHKs (outsiders are usually shocked to call it a 2BHK) force Mumbaikars to find space for themselves not in their homes but in different corners of the city. The pointy concrete star-like stones on Queen’s Necklace or the different skywalks from the station to the auto-stand or markets or in autos with the glow of the digits on the meter in red shooting up rapidly as you reach your destination. We don’t seek comfort in the confines of our tiny houses in Mumbai. Still, the entire city, “Akha Bombay”, is ours and the millions of others we share it with.