Views from the cheap seats

Does our city offer something for everyone irrespective of how much they earn or what they do for a living?

How one engages with a city has a lot to do with roots, the people we know or live with, and the strangers who act as its unofficial ambassadors. Bombay scores highly on some of these parameters because it’s hard to find friendlier, more welcoming people anywhere in India. It’s why the city is often described as an accommodating place offering something for everyone. The more I think of it though, the less I believe that to be true.

Yes, we adjust, but that is because of how we are raised, and how we make sure our battered, breaking city continues to function because there is no other choice. Does that make this a hospitable space for everyone? Not necessarily, because what we often overlook is the importance of money, and how its presence or absence makes a far bigger difference to how an outsider looks at us.

I think, at times, of what Bombay offers to those who have very little. What do people who can’t afford bars and restaurants, people afraid to enter malls, or people who are increasingly being priced out of humbler localities by builder lobby-influenced gentrification do? How do they spend their weekends in what is often referred to as a cosmopolitan city? Where do they go? Do they think of this as a great place to live? Have we asked them?

When I was younger, it seemed as if we had multiple options no matter how much we earned. We could stop by the sea, for instance, at Juhu or Marve, Dadar or Chowpatty, because those benefits were offered to us all generously, free of cost. We could be beggars or merchants, but we all had equal access to the ocean around us. This may come as a surprise to some of us, but that largesse is no longer something we can take for granted. To walk down Worli or Marine Drive is now exhausting, partly because getting there isn’t as easy as it used to be, and also because those refreshing views of the sea are being gradually pushed further and further away from our lines of vision. The sea still exists, but now laps against roads that stand between it and the rest of us.

Then there’s entertainment. As college students, we used to stop at Gaiety and Galaxy, Sterling and Eros, safe in the knowledge that we could watch a movie and eat something without having to worry about the cost of a ride home. Our movie theatres were levellers, bringing together Bombayites of all income groups, offering them all a blockbuster to escape into for a few hours every week. It’s why popular movies ran for years, not days.

I shudder to think about what a movie looks like these days, in terms of what it costs an average family. This isn’t about inflation either; it’s about space, and how venues that once catered to those with very little have been forced to shut down and give way to places dedicated to pure commerce. Movie theatres that survived wars eventually gave up their ghosts to real estate companies, leaching life and colour from their neighbourhoods in exchange for expensive housing. We didn’t notice until it was too late, or maybe we did but were too busy trying to earn a living to care.

Our sources of entertainment have only shrunk over the years. Our grandparents would roam the length and breadth of this city, but our movements have been steadily restricted by a combination of poor infrastructure, rising travel costs, and tax-inflated bills. It’s why so many of us, depending on our smaller salaries, now turn to local restaurants, roadside stalls, the safe reliability of Netflix at home, or the comfort of videos on our mobile phones for entertainment on our days off. The worlds our city once offered are slowly being cut off from us and made available only to those who have the means to explore them.

There are many things that go into the making of a great city. Bombay has a lot to offer to those who earn enough, but very little for those who have nothing. Our attitude of respecting the rich and ignoring the poor has now trickled down into all aspects of our lives, affecting everything from infrastructure to architecture. This will cost us.

What will tomorrow’s Bombay look like? A forest of glass and concrete without a soul? A place for the very rich alone? Is that the kind of city worth living in? 

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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