Mumbai Meri Jaan

A big smile and a hug and a frown, my friend tells me, “You should’nt have come to receive me at this hour. I know you are an Iron Woman and all, but why take chances?”
I have faced these paternal suggestions from scores of my friends whom I come to pick up at Mumbai Airport at un-Godly hours. All I can do is smile like a grown-up at an innocent child. I repeat the ritual and say, “This is Mumbai, and you will eat your words soon.”
How I love those moments when the friend sits back with me in an Auto and cruises through the roads still bustling with traffic awestruck, and I give it back, “So, you still think it’s unsafe?”
Mumbai makes me alive. When I return home all the way from Bade-Mian at Colaba at Three in the night, needless to say, quite drunk thanks to Leo Pold and Mondegar, I feel safe. Coming home at Eleven from office, an empty refrigerator does not make me sad, I know food is just a call away. I do not worry if together with friends we finish a full bottle of scotch without getting high. I call up the nearest boozewalla and get the replenishment before we finish that last drop. Walking down the road from home I can have a peek at the choicest of second-hand books by the roadside, buy them or rent them for a reading.
I make it a point to buy trinkets that sell at the Ladies-Second-Class on Mumbai locals. It gives me an odd satisfaction to ask the non-mumbaikars to guess the price of that latest fad ear-ring and disclose with a flourish, “Only Five Bucks!” I also love the utter carelessness with which the vendor leaves me with her entire collection so that I pick and choose at leisure. So far, I have never seen anyone cheating any vendor.
I love the pace with which Nimbu-pani is served to you at the railway stations so that you gulp it down comfortably before you start running.
I love the way people extend their hands to anyone running after the train in spite of the fact that apparently there is no extra room.
I love it when I see Mumbaikars braving the rains, strikes and floods to reach office on weekdays and love it more when I see decked up families hanging out at malls and eateries on weekends, as if stating, ‘we deserve it’.
I love the way my neighbours are oblivious of me reaching home at obscenely late hours, from work or drunk or with a male friend or with many friends or surprisingly early.
Now a days, I also shudder when my Autowalla refuses to disclose his native place amidst a harmless chit-chat fearing me to be a MNS worker. I clearly do not look like one but if you are an Autowalla from the God-forsaken land of Bihar you got to be cautious! I do not love this at all.
I have lived in most of the metropolis of India and have enough primary data to back this conclusion- In Mumbai, a Bangladeshi refugee; a Bihari Labour; an Autowalla from UP; a wada-stand walla from Mangalore, all shed their regional characteristics to become one with the land of professionals. The individual qualities of being a cheat; jingoist; anti-nationalists; unprofessional etc. do not apply to a specific regional group of people. On an average, a Mumbaikar, belonging to any caste, region or religion is more peaceful and professional than rest of our country put together.
At 1.35 AM when disembark the local train under the responsible surveillance of the armed guard in the ladies-compartment, I love the way I can catch an auto to my home without being molested or being harangued to pay extra.
To me there is nothing more a single, female professional can ask from a city!