Alright, first of all do forgive me for the long delay in updating this BLOG. Also before I start I’d like to thank so many of you for emailing me finding out if I was ok and safe. Well as you can see, I am well alive. Thank you and God bless you all.
Uncultured-ly Mumbai, is the best term that I can think of to explain what I brought with me from my first hand experience there. I landed up in Mumbai on Tuesday 26th itself, at around 9am. The weather was sunny and I right away headed to my friend’s house in Juhu. An hour later I had to leave to meet Vyne for lunch and then had to get back to Juhu to be picked by my friend and off-beat producer Pravesh Sippy to be taken to his place at Beach Candy for dinner. I had promised Pravesh that I would be at Prithvi at 5pm. Having had a great lunch with Vyne, we came out of the restaurant and saw it was raining, not heavy showers but neither was it a drizzle. That was just after 2pm and since I wasn’t doing much until 5pm decided to get onto Yari road (Andheri, Versova) and say a quick Hi to my friends Mamta and Rajeev Kheror. Got there as the rain got slightly more stronger – but then again the dinchak auto made me savour all of Mumbai. Got to the Kherors and soon we were sipping on Chai and finalizing plans to meet some journalist, Radio Jockeys, film makers and some other personalities at the coffee shop at Prithvi theater the next evening, so that I could show case the Uncultured Company and my peace cause to these people. Lots and lots of chai and even more rain. Looking out of the window, one could not see any earth - not even a glimpse of the concrete on the roads. Cars were already have submerged in the water. I tried calling Pravesh to apologise that I was running late, and perhaps even stuck at Yari Road. No contact whatsoever as the mobile networks were jammed. Finally at around 7pm Pravesh smsmed me (apparently he sent me the email at 4pm-ish) telling me that we’d have to postpone dinner for the next day. Rajeev tried to take me around atleast to find a cab who would take me to Juhu, but we failed completely. A bottle of vodka in hand we went back to the Kherors and spent the evening just chilling like friends and taking about the weather. Stories began coming in about how people were stranded, neighbours couldn’t get hold of their loved ones at all. Seeing this the neighbours all did their best to contact a distant uncle in some remote place and requesting them to make a call or to go and find the missing person. It was all done so effortlessly. I remember we were talking and I fell asleep not knowing when. Thanks to Mamta and Rajeev aggressiveness (LOL – and Sandya Advani backing them up) that I stayed there that night. All the invitees for the meeting the next day were still very enthusiastic about meeting the next day as per schedule. The next morning the Gods of the rains had shown some tiredness and there was just a light drizzle. I had to get back to Juhu. We fnally found an auto-rickshaw that offered to take me as far as it could. Yari road to Andheri four bungalows was a piece of cake, clear roads, less people on the roads. Those on the roads were on their way to work!!!! (Note: This is a very common Mumbai thing. Nothing stops these people from their lives)
The auto guy stopped abruptly and I soon knew why. All I could see was a river that had no end, street lights on either side of her and people walking in the middle of her. That used to be a main road 24 hours ago. Thousands of people just walking into or out of her. People with water up to their waist walking, in somewhat of a human chain. Some in fear but majority of them in smiles and braveness. I had to do this. The auto guy told me that a bus was approaching and that I should get onto the bus immediately instead of walking in that water. I agreed and got of the auto and jumped into the bus. As the bus drove into this river, the water has covered the first 2 steps of the bus, but it carried forward until it came to a small cross roads. A fellow passenger told me that if the bus went right I’d be ok as it would be very close to Juhu, else I’d have to get down and start walking to my right. The bus unplanned, took a right as the rest of the roads were blocked. However a few minutes later it stopped and they declared the bus could not move further. Why? Te he road ahead was not only a river, but people had left their vehicles in the middle of the road and just left them and walked away. The roads were now blocked with parked cars. I got off the bus and decided to walk it out. What happened next is nothing but the beauty of the human soul.
The water got deeper as we walked ahead. People cared about the well-being of everyone around them. Kids were being carried by strangers and were assured that nothing would happen to them. Thanks to the pot holes in Mumbai’s streets, people were careful where they walked and begun walking on the dividers in the middle of the road. Not once, for the 3 hours I walked did I ever see anyone misbehave and try and push someone off the elevated divider. Not once did I see anyone who tried to butt onto the divider being asked to piss off or not being allowed to come onto of the divider onto safety. There were those who you knew were praying, then there were those who were singing to keep the spirits up. On either side, people living in the buildings nearby were throwing bottled water down at us, so that we had some safe water to drink. An elderly lady was tired, the water was above her waist and she needed to rest. A young man struggling to push his motorbike thru the waters just stopped. He asked the lady to sit on the bike and started to push the bike. The pressure of the water was bad enough, he was clearly tired, but he still got the old woman on the bike. Immediately another 2-3 youth put their bags around their neck and started to push the bike from the back. They just exchanged a subtle smile and nothing more was made of this. In front of me, there was a man, perhaps in his 50s, grey haired and a rough stubble. He held a bamboo stick in his hand. The dividers in the middle of the road were all of a sudden not useable, as the government had put these railings on them, so people had to now walk on the road itself, not knowing where the potholes were. I made friends with Navneet who lived nearby, we talked about ourselves, the rains and smoked together like old friends. Suddenly the man in the front yelled ‘THAMB’ (stop). Using his bamboo he had found a pot hole. He warned the people behind him (us) and then made sure that we warned those behind us and so forth. I must have walked atleast 20mins ahead of that pothole and constantly looked back. Everyone was warned about the pothole by those in front of them, as they warned those behind them. Finally Navneet reached his building, and insisted that I go and reat at his place. I declined solely coz I had walked quite a bit, and soon I’d reach my destination.
We walked past the house of the legendary Amithab Bachchan. On a normal day people would stop and look at his house, hoping to get a glance of the man. On that day too, it was like a normal day. People stopped and looked at his house, even though he doesn’t live there anymore, people noticed that there was no entrance to this place, as the water had reached nearly half the height of his front gate. For God’s sake folks, stop looking there, and keep walking to safety. Not in Mumbai, LIFE GOES ON AS NORMAL, and stopping in front of Amithab’s house is a very normal thing to do on a very normal day.
I finally made it to Juhu and saw the earth, the concrete of the road just outside Amithab’s new house, opposite the Juhu Centaur hotel. My friends house wasn’t very far from there, but I still decided to take an auto-rickshaw there. The auto-guy told me that more people were coming from the river and they were tired so he would take more people with him. I agreed and finally reached the safety of my friend’s house.
The rest of the day was just spent hearing stories and doing whatever we could to help people. People who had another 3-4 hours of walking, they were being called by my friend’s parents, offered tea and a chance to relax before they took off. The good Samaritans reached out and NOBODY exploited that humanity. Who were these people? I could not even once figure out if any of them were chritians, muslims or hindus or whatever. I couldn’t figure out if they were rich or poor, Brahmins or labourers. They were just a very special tribe called ‘the Mumbaikars’ (the folk from Mumbai). They smiled, they cared, the gave and reached out unconditionally. At that moment, all I could realize was that these people, consciously or not, but yet very genuinely felt that they were all part of just one world, they seemed to have one faith and they seemed to belong to a common race. Their colour of life was just one, hey had merely a different face. I have been proclaiming humanity for years, looking for it in people and I saw it many a times all over the world. Looking for it in a place – I finally saw it….in Mumbai. In prayers, in gratitude and above all in salutation to you my dearest Mumbai and above all to the real and totally uncultured folk that make her so special. God bless and thank you for making me a part of it, coz in there for the first time in my life, I realized that I was not the only uncultured soul lost in this huge universe.
