A friend who works in US and is currently on a month long business tour of India wrote an email some days back lamenting that Mumbai was still the same as it was three years back when he left for US; but Delhi and Gurgaon were rocking and so much action and feel good was in the air. Reading his email, I wondered if Mumbai was on a downward spiral.I have been living in Mumbai since last two years. When I was a child growing up in a small town, there was a perception about Mumbai (then Bombay) being the land of dreams and opportunities. 15 years later, including two years of hands on experience in living in this concrete jungle, I am convinced that there is lot of ugliness behind the pretty face of Mumbai that is projected publicly. May be Mumbai was the ultimate destination in the past; but in my opinion, it is fast losing its charm and moving towards an unplanned disaster.

Every morning I take an arduous journey from Kurla station to Andheri (East) on a rickety auto-rickshaw. And believe me, this 40 minutes journey is in itself a revelation of what is going on in Mumbai. Right from the moment I get down on the platform to the time I reach my office, every moment is eventful. You need raw power to alight from the train with your specs intact in the morning rush hour. And then starts the run to the staircase, jostling, pushing, and shoving in what seems to be a matter of prestige, life, and death. To me it is nothing less than insanity. You come out to hire an auto-rickshaw and are greeted by a sea of humanity and blare of ear splitting horns. And as if the auditory experience is incomplete, the auto-driver would put some 500 Watt of remix music. Five minutes into the journey and what you see are small houses (shanty is a better word) on the roadside which have a world of their own amid 3 feet wide lanes and loitering urchins. A couple of minutes later you are overpowered by the stink of what is obviously the smell of shit. On the left side of the road, the community toilet stands proud while harried users of the service are seen in vicinity with empty containers of Vanaspati and Fevicol. Just 50 meters ahead, you get the visually disgusting sight of the open sewer flowing on road and vehicles just rushing past it. It stinks. The garbage remains scattered on the road giving a feasting times for rodents and making them fat. Don’t be surprised if a rat of a cat’s size crosses your vehicle.

Next stage of journey leads to more honk, more garbage, and more stench. As you move towards Jarimari and feel a spam in your back, you realize that roads of Mumbai are not good in shape. Open potholes are visible, and craters on roads make a complete mockery of you and your vehicle. The eventful 40 minutes journey is an irritating cocktail of pathetic roads, high noise pollution, unexplained madness for time, snail’s pace of vehicles, unnecessary blare of horns, crazy bus drivers, disregard for traffic rules, auto-rickshaws without silencer, garbage, stench, and general madness. And then I wonder if this is the financial capital of India?

Cynics may say that you cannot comment on Mumbai based on experiences of a 40 minutes drive. But I have an answer they will find hard to digest or resent. If the financial capital of India has even one locality whose reality is as true as what is depicted above, the city and her administrators should be ashamed of themselves. And if that is in the very heart of the city, the less said the better.

The face of Mumbai may be pretty thanks to the swanky cars and lavish lifestyles of a select few. But the city has an ugly under-belly. Till now the pretty face was pretty enough to divert the attention from the under-belly; but now, the ugly under-belly is getting bigger and bigger. The gradually protruding under-belly is ensuring that attention is shifting from pretty face to the uglier aspects.

It may be too late soon. Or is it already?

Mayank Krishna