A new flyover levitates outside the windows of a hundred surprised apartment blocks. Mumbai lives there and the residents have lost their view – a mirror reflection of themselves across the road. Now flying motorists can peer right into fourth floor apartments as they speed across town.
A man stands at a gas stove bathed in fluorescent light, greened slightly by the paint of the room. He wears a singlet on his back with the grime of the day showing through. On the walls are his neatly arranged possessions, a few books, some pots, drying shirts. He is perhaps a migrant worker with family far away. Our four-wheeled vantage point is intrusive, strobe-like. Nothing is hidden behind curtains, nothing much to hide. Next is another shoe-box apartment, lit up in the steamy darkness. A woman stands on her balcony, staring out at the traffic.
The scene is repeated over and over, barnacled old apartment blocks flash by. Kids chase each other though a kitchen. An old lady sits in an armchair beneath a naked bulb. Clothes hang on balconies. Lives are being lived, and for one frozen moment, we’re there with them, peeking into their story.
In a parallel world where I am gifted omnipotence, I would freeze frame the images that India throws at my car window. I’d stare at the frozen frame, soaking up all the pixels. And then I’d step into the picture, stand beside the man in the green room and sample his simple meal. I’d ask him about his family and he’d beam as he talked about his wife and young children in the backblocks of Maharastra. He’d name his village as though I may know it. And the unspeakable loneliness of city life would seep out through his tired eyes.
This is tough city. Nobody speaks of retiring here. Everybody discusses the commute – 2 hours over broken roads is not unusual. If Mumbai has any town planners they should be fired. And then we should go back in time and fire their predecessors and their predecessor’s predecessors. Fire them all. This place could be Manhattan, and it may well become as important as Manhattan. But a meeting at the other end of town has about the same appeal as a meeting on another planet.
It gets worse in the rain (and better, but that's a separate story). The monsoon rain comes in like an angry mob. It announces its arrival with a dense black cloud, and then the breeze shakes the trees as the clouds close in, darkening everything in their path. The rain arrives at 45degrees. Punches are thrown. And then the mob departs, off to deliver a message to another part of town.
