Mumbai: The City of Sham

The pre independence unification which India witnessed is quite paradigmatic; that in itself speaks a lot for a nation which stood united against all odds to defy the British colonialism in India. A proud moment that I, along with all other Indians, share. This obviously has given me a thoroughgoing reason to advocate our oneness to one and all. At the same time I have also always been countered by a friend of mine as per who it was just this one time that we displayed the so-called unity otherwise which, India as a nation has always been segregated. Thus the word unification is used in the beginning.

I, thankfully do not have to worry about a place to live in Mumbai as of now but had scurried around Bandra early this year, looking for a place on rent, for a friend of mine who happens to be a Muslim. Astonishingly we were turned away from many places then for one simple reason, being people who owned the place simply refusing to give it on rent to a Muslim. Some of these places happened to be on the plush Bandstand. And we always thought that educated people think differently, looking at the gentry. Nonetheless, with time things change and so do people along with it- at the least most we like to believe so.

A couple of weeks back I was house hunting once more; again in Bandra and coincidentally once again for a Muslim friend. I saw a fairly neat apartment on Carter Road which I very much liked and I also had had a chance to speak with the proprietor. We affably discussed the intricacies of the contract and the lady in question being congenial everything seemed quite nice. Amongst the general discourse she happened to ask if I were a Punjabi; which she was and which I have more often been mistaken as. To which I replied that I wasn’t. I also immediately informed her, at that time, that the person who would be staying in is a Muslim. And there we go again, déjà vu. She said that she personally had no qualms in taking anyone as a tenant from any religion whatsoever, but the people in the building, being predominantly Sindhis and Punjabis, were opposed to it. She even went on to state that she wanted to sell her apartment and the interested party being a Muslim, was facing a strong resistance from the entire lot in the building.

It’s such a shame that we choose to live in a society which is marred by dogmatism. The worst part is that it comes from a bunch of people who happen to be educated and of superior upbringing. We prissily discus the whole situation in parties and in front of numerous people with a lot of zeal, but when push comes to shove we once again act our ghastly self. Moreover, when a public figure like Shabana Azmi, who has relentless spoken in favour of the rightful, states the obvious which is going on, people like Aadesh Shrivastava have an audacity to publicly rebuke her. How naïve or oblivious can a person be to not see what’s happening right under his nose. Is democracy a perquisite of a certain class or a set of people? With hypocrisy at its helm, Mumbai, the City of Dream seems to be turning into a City of Sham.