How one lives in Bombay these days is increasingly being defined by the kind of salary one takes home
The numerous infrastructure works going on simultaneously means hours spent in traffic jams across the city. Pic/Satej Shinde
I visited a friend at Madh Island a little over two weeks ago. It was a place I hadn’t been to in decades, so I was surprised to find a township with full occupancy where only the odd bungalow once peeked through the mangroves. Getting to his apartment involved taking an Uber from another friend’s home in Goregaon and cost me around R600 because it wasn’t rush hour. By the time my visit ended a few hours later, I was in no mood to risk getting back via Link Road, where time routinely stands still after 5 pm. I didn’t dare check what would be thrown up by ‘surge pricing’.
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My only other option was the ferry to Versova. The standard rate for a rickshaw to the ferry was Rs 50, while a ticket for the ferry was Rs 10. When I got to the other side, I was given the choice of sharing a rickshaw to the Versova Metro station for Rs 25 or having a rickshaw to myself for R80. The road to the Metro station felt like it belonged to a time before mass rapid transit had been invented, as the rickshaw squeezed itself through narrow lanes with inches to spare. I was amazed, as I often am, at how no one was injured even as I watched children and senior citizens walk past, unknowingly holding their lives in their hands.
The Metro itself was lovely, at least until it rolled into Andheri, at which point it quickly began to resemble your average Borivli local. I had a seat, which made me one of the lucky ones, but I could still sense the relief of most commuters that this option existed at all. I sensed it too because I come from a past where getting from East to West once meant writing off the better part of a working day. By the time I stepped off at Ghatkopar, however, is when I knew I had made a mistake.
The outside of every railway station in Bombay is now the same. There are lines that stretch into the distance, made up of exhausted people trying to get home, at the mercy of buses that can’t hold them all, or rickshaw and cab drivers who won’t take them where they want to go. This newspaper has run numerous campaigns trying to get the traffic police to do their job, but there is only so much that a perennially short-staffed group of people can do. It seems as if Bombayites are condemned to commute without the decency that ought to be afforded to all human beings. They will always be treated like cattle, exposed to the elements, praying for relief while knowing it will not come.
I walked back and forth outside Ghatkopar station for almost 40 minutes, desperately looking for a cab that would take me to Wadala, my final stop. Trying Uber made no sense given how bad traffic was and how impossible it would be for me to find my designated cab. Eventually, after I had walked as far from the station as possible, I chanced upon a driver who agreed to take me without a meter. I got in nonetheless, desperate to end my journey at any cost. When I arrived at Bhakti Park—an eight-kilometre ride that should have taken 20 minutes but took 50 instead—I was charged R600 again. I paid up because we both knew I had no choice.
The reason I recount this ordeal is to point out the distance between what we are told a developed city is like, and what it means. Bombay is not a liveable city. It is not a city that cares for people unless they can hire chauffeurs or pay for private transport. It is not a city that encourages walking, and it increasingly puts the lives of its residents at risk by failing to maintain basic safety standards while building infrastructure. There is no pattern, only chaos.
I should not have had to spend over Rs 1,300 to travel such short distances because, despite what people say about travel in India being cheap when compared to the West, R1,300 is still an enormous sum for a majority of those who call this place home. Until we have a government that prioritises the commuting needs of that browbeaten majority over the building of superhighways for SUVs, this is a city doomed to fail. Nothing our politicians say, or promise, can change that.
When he isn’t ranting about all things Mumbai, Lindsay Pereira can be almost sweet. He tweets @lindsaypereira
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The views expressed in this column are the individual’s and don’t represent those of the paper.
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