
The Spirit of Mumbai explained
“A great city is that which has the greatest men and women, if it be a few ragged huts, it is still the greatest city in the whole world” - Walt Whitman
They have called it “the city of dreams”. They have called it “the city of gold”. They have called it “the city that never sleeps”. So in a way, they have tried to cover every economic aspect of this city, which we, so lovingly, call “Mumbai”. They have known it as a place that is constantly on the move, where people would see through each other in their bid to earn extra bucks. Where work never stops. Where it takes load-shedding operations to get the lights out. A city that is out of breath all the time and yet carries on at a frantic pace. A city that gives us an impression that time doesn’t run but it flies.
But to be honest, this city is lot more…a lot more than its mere economical value. I am not suggesting that its economical value be disregarded. Of course, this city is all of that and that would be every Mumbaikar’s unapologetic confession. However, in our hectic schedules and busy minds, we tend to forget what this city really stands for. The only way to remind the people of this city about its true value is, somehow, to stop this pace at which it moves and reflect upon its true nature. But heck, who has the time to do that? No one in this city! However, there have been times in the past when this city was forced to wait and ponder. This is the story of one such event. Like a billion such stories that breath in every nook and corner of this city, this one was lost in the sands of time. But I believe every story needs to be dusted off once in a while…and revealed.
The year was 1993. It was just another Friday for me. I remember it was a Friday because I was watching the cartoon series “Laurel and Hardy” on DD Metro in the evening. As a kid, you tend to remember the days based on your television programs since back in those days we had just two channels and no re-runs. It was then that a few of my neighbours came home visiting and started giving me a weird look. I was not a very bright kid, but I could sense that something was not right. I tried to figure out if something inordinate had happened. I wondered what it could be.
The day was 12th March, 1993. I was informed that there had been a series of bomb blasts all over Mumbai. I was too young to understand the weight of the situation and or at least link this event to the looks I was attracting. It was around then that my mom arrived home with tears in her eyes. I couldn’t quite understand. One of my neighbours tried to elaborate the situation to me. Out of the thirteen bombs that went off that day, one of them had exploded at around 1:30 p.m. at the Bombay Stock Exchange building. Just near the building is a bank where many employees from around that area visited during the lunch hours to get their official work done. My dad had gone to that bank at around the same time and went missing that afternoon. No one knew exactly where he was until an anonymous phone call at my mom’s office revealed that a person having the same name as my dad had been admitted to St. George Hospital. My mom rushed to the hospital that afternoon. My mom arrived home with tears in her eyes that evening.
On reaching the hospital that afternoon, my mom discovered that the person admitted to that hospital was indeed my dad. But he was unconscious and she was told that shards of glass-pieces from the buildings had torn through his body. It was imperative that he regained his consciousness for further treatment. But until evening, he failed to respond. The hospitals were flooded with patients and there were not enough cots to accommodate them all. Most of the patients were lying on the floor. By evening, the doctors told my mom that they had to take a tough decision. They had to treat those patients who had better chance of survival. They gave my dad zero percent chance of survival. Hence he was moved out of the cot on to the floor while some other severely injured, but conscious patient occupied the cot. While my dad was lying on the floor unconscious, my mom begged the nurses to attend to him, as she was not ready to give up hope. The nurses politely responded and every now and then checked on my dad. My relatives requested my mom to go home, while they stayed back in the hospital with my dad. That night, my mom could not sleep at all. I could see her quietly praying. A long night followed.
The next day, my mom was back at the hospital in the morning. My dad had not regained his consciousness. The good news was that he was still alive. A few nurses attended to him out of sheer politeness. Nothing against the doctors personally, as the sheer volume of work that day was huge.
But what my mom went through that whole day is something she never forgot. There were people arriving at the hospital in pieces. There were nurses carrying severed heads and pieces of limbs. The morgues were full to capacity and the usual silence of the hospital was pierced with the wails of people who had lost someone close. People who came looking for their missing ones were led to the morgue-house to see if they could recognize “that person”. They were of all ages. Children, young and old. While my mom waited besides my dad on the floor, there were people groaning and moaning with pain. She could see the dance of death everywhere and all she could do was pray.
There were a few journalists who spoke to the families around. They were the ones who wrote about the seriousness of the incident in papers for the whole world to know. They also requested the citizens of this country to come forth and help the needy. Some of them wrote about the families that were destroyed due to the massacre. A journalist interviewed my mom, who told her about her state of mind. The next day, my mom’s story was printed in the papers along with those of many who were waiting with bated breath for someone close they knew to win their respective battles with death. However, at the end of that day, my dad was still unconscious and the doctors had a resigned look on their faces as they consoled my mom on their rounds and left to attend others. Another long night followed.
It was 14th March, Sunday. It was my sister’s birthday. Every year, my dad had always been the first one to wish her. That year things could have been different. I always believed God has his own unique ways – different and better than ours. In the wee hours of Sunday morning, my dad regained consciousness. A nurse was the first to discover this and she immediately ran to get a doctor. A doctor was there in no time. Finally, he was being treated like a man who is going to live. On regaining consciousness, he asked my mother what day it was. My mom told him it was Sunday. He said, “In that case, go home and wish our daughter a happy birthday on my behalf too.” From there began his long and seemingly endless battle with pain and treatments. He went through a lot, but whenever we children visited the hospital, he acted as if it was nothing. Within three months, he was discharged from the hospital and he was home, although he could not walk around.
Did you know that our body can somehow recognize foreign particles and has a mechanism to eliminate the same? My dad taught me that. For the next six years, on any given day, pieces of glass used to surface through my dad’s skin. His body was trying to throw out those glass pieces that had remained in his body. Since the process of elimination was slow, my dad used to pick up a nail-cutter and pull the piece out. The problem was, sometimes, the piece of glass used to surface from his neck or back. That left him no choice but to take mom’s help pulling them out. I knew it was very painful for him, but there was not a single moan coming out of that man. My dad also taught me to maintain your sense of humour, always. Because when I showed him mom’s interview in the papers, he looked at my mom and said, “Remember I had told you that if you marry me I will make you famous one day. I kept my promise!” I thought the tears in her eyes were a little uncalled-for because I thought it was pretty funny.
But what amazed me the most was what my dad did when he started to walk. The first thing he did was that he went back to the hospital he was admitted to. He personally met the victims who seemed to be in big pain and told them, “You know I was also lying on a cot like this a few days back. Don’t worry; you will also be fine like me. They treat you very well here.” Those victims were total strangers, whom he had never met. But while all we saw was a broken-toothed smile through stitched faces, he saw something more. He saw the ray of hope piercing through the dark clouds of despair, and it gave him a lot of joy, as he went around spreading his infectious enthusiasm of hope from one patient to another. That was his way of healing his wounds. That day I realized that he was something more than just my dad. He was a Mumbaikar!
The incident showed me another side of this city. The same taxi-drivers, who would fight with you for the last rupee that they deserved according to their fair “taxi-metres”, refused to accept money from anyone they drove to the hospital. In fact, they made multiple trips from the nearest venue of destruction to the hospitals, carrying unknown strangers in their taxis and thus rendering their taxis to make-shift ambulances. Normally, they would not allow anyone above five years of age to put their feet on their apparently expensive taxi seats. But that day, it didn’t matter that their precious seats were soiled with the blood of complete strangers, who may not even live to thank them. The local people joined the rescue mission as well. They were all around the hospital, trying to help doctors and nurses carry people around and perform any miniscule tasks that were requested. And after ensuring that there was no one who needed any further help, they disappeared into the crowd. Like heroes, they came, they saved lives, and they disappeared into anonymity. I don’t know how to thank the unknown people who found my dad on the day of the incident, the taxi-driver who may not have known my dad but drove him to the hospital anyway, the person who identified my dad and made that phone-call informing my mom about him, the nurse who looked after him irrespective of his state and rushed to inform the doctors in time as he regained senses, the doctors who, although they had their hands full, treated him. It was due to the effort of these total strangers that I didn’t have to spend a fatherless childhood. Today, all these people are just faces in crowd. My anonymous heroes!
I know that inspite of all these efforts, so many loved ones could not reach home after that fateful day. My heart goes out to their families, because I can now see how such incidents affect the families of those, who for no fault of their own were present at the wrong place and at the wrong time. There is no real compensation for their loss. But when I see my dad today, I can see that the scars on his body are still there…but so is his smile and zeal for life. This city is much more than just “the city of gold”. To me, it is a “city with a golden heart”. I owe a lot to this city personally. It is said that if you want to see the character of a person, see how he holds up in the face of adversities. My city held itself up real fine. Coriolanus III remarks, “What is a city, but the people; true the people are the city.” To me, that is what the Mumbaikars stand for. That is what Mumbai stands for. People often ask us, what is this “Spirit” of Mumbai?
Honestly, I am too insignificant a person even to attempt answering that question. But I know of a significant someone who can explain exactly what it is. In chapter 2, verse 23 of the Bhagvad Gita, Lord Krishna says:
It cannot be pierced by weapons or burned by fire;
Water cannot wet it, nor can wind dry it.
It cannot be pierced or burned, made wet or dry.
It is everlasting and infinite, standing on the motionless foundations of eternity.
Salaam Mumbai!
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