Mumbai Masala

My brushes with the enigmatic city of Bombay, or Mumbai, if you must, have always been by the way of transit- I have traveled through parts of the city either on the way to airport from a railway station, or from one railway terminus to the other. The historical and other important tourist attractions of the maximum city notwithstanding, the bad traffic conditions and worse weather conditions have deterred me from taking an extended tour of the city itself. It is funny how so many million people adore Mumbai despite, or shall I dare say, because of these inconveniences. Some say their day does not get over unless they are themselves part of one of the hundreds skirmishes within the local suburban trains or at least witness one during their commuting hours. Others swear by the stink that Dharavi emanates. Some are fans of the sticky, humid summer months; others simply love the time spent on traffic signals with street urchins begging to buy their trivial merchandise.  

Recently I was on the way to the airport from Churchgate, via Haji Ali, in a cool cab, with my family. The taxi driver from, where else but Uttar Pradesh, was chattering off to glory, convincing us that his wife did not let him speak at home. The humdrum Mumbai lanes were already getting on to me and I was looking forward to the familiar signboard that said, in proud Marathi, ‘Vimantal Pudhe aahe’. Suddenly, the driver excitedly pointed in one direction and said, ‘There it is!’ My daughter and my wife were jolted from their slumber and we all looked to where his finger was pointing. We couldn’t spot anything spectacular and told the driver as much. ‘Arre sahib, dikh nahi raha? Mukesh Ambani ka Antalla!’ Oh, so he was trying to show us the majestic multi-storey residence of Mukesh Ambani- Antilla. We had seen pictures of the now famous building so we could easily spot it standing taller than most of the other buildings in its vicinity. We can’t claim to have passed by it, as the building was quite far off, visible only because of its size, and fame. ‘Weird shape,’ said my wife, Sangeeta, in the compulsorily-find-flaw-with-something-that-can-never-be-yours tone. ‘No, it is quite cool,’ countered my daughter Maliha. After a pause, Sangeeta asked, ‘How much do you think the Ambanis spent on it?’ ‘You wouldn’t want to know,’ I said. After another brief pause, Maliha asked, ‘Dad, how many people live in there?’ ‘I really don’t know, dear,’ I said, but then went on to tell her, as much as I knew, about the Ambani family- how Dhirubhai Ambani started the first of his businesses in polyester yarn trading, and then went on, over the years, to become the chairman of one of the largest companies in the world- Reliance Industries Limited. I also told her about his two sons, and how they continued to expand their businesses, and by default their personal wealth. Perhaps completely mesmerized by the wealth of one single person, something that she had hitherto seen only in Richie Rich comic strips, she asked me one final question, ‘Does Mr Ambani wash and reuse his underwear or simply buy a new one for each day?’ I did not have an answer to that. And I guess no one does.