"Bombay" bombed

Many people might consider this post as a tribute to the people of the city in which I spent 21 years before coming to the States for my masters... But for me it is more of an obligation to pour in my thoughts. I am writing this post so late since I took some time to read many other blogs before commenting on this. Many people appreciated the now internationally famed "Mumbai's Spirit", while some others were bored of this term and wanted an explanantion from their co-bloggers. But the blog which perplexed me the most was the one by a guy who had spent almost 20 years in Chennai and now in the States. I could not understand how can he blog about the attitude of Mumbai' people. It will be like I commenting on some local issues in Hyderabad or Bangalore, which I hardly have any idea of. Whatsoever, I found some of his questions interesting and answerable. Like, have the people of Mumbai ever potested against the government or have they ever thought about their future and if not, its not their spirit but their selfish attitude. Firstly, Mumbai' people are not so amateurs to protest for a 50 paise raise in the bus fare which is so common and a headlines news matter in most of the other bigger cities including the country's capital. I think thats the reason why most of the so called Indian metropolises do not have an efficient public transport system.
Secondly, he tells that helping others in such situations is not a matter of pride but a common phenomenon and infact the duty of people of any city. I totally agree with him, but just want to remind him that Mumbai hardly ever gets any support from the fellow citizens during any of its emergencies but for any other relief fund Mumbai's contribution % is the maximum. Why? A great example would be Tsunami as against the earthquake in Lathur. The number of casualties in both the accidents were almost the same. Probably, many people might not even know about the latter accident, which is so very depressing. The answer to the question why only Mumbai is repeatedly attacked is very simple and that would be Mumbai being the financial capital of India. Only Mumbai, New York, Madrid, and London are attacked and the primary reason being money literally flowing in all these cities and the fact that these cities contol the functioning of their respective countries.
As Vinod Mehta (editor of Outlook) points out, that if Mumbai stops, India stops. V Gangadhar appreciates the Mumbai's spirit in the Hindu by stating that his assistant went home walking for about 40 kms and next morning she reported to work exactly at 9 am with a fresh countenance. Is it that easy? I still remember how most of the college students used to travel to their respective colleges duing curfew period after '93 blasts and almost all the colleges registered regular attendance during this period and also the next day of the current blasts. Imagine this situation: One parallel railway running unaffected during the blasts and the affected railway back on track after 4 hours. Thats Bombay for the world. The best scene in Mumbai would be the way you are invited onto the step board of the train even though there are already three times the designed passengers inside the compartment which is best described by Sukethu Mehta in his pulitzer pize finalist book titled "Maximum City". I just ordered it through Amazon and am waiting to get my hands on that.

Another major observation about Bombay I realized after coming to the states is that it is really a melting pot of many religions and languages. Where else, would you find a parsi (zorastrian) and a chrisitian walking together with a hindu and a muslim....
Mark this: Minority institutions for South Indians, Muslims, Christians, Sindhis and Gujarathis to the best of my knowledge.

Photo Courtesy: The Hindu (Web)