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At
home in an alien city
It
is not just the old-style privileged corporate employee who is coming
to Mumbai these days but also the young job seeker competing for
jobs and accommodation with his or her Indian counterpart.
For
many years, Mumbai was considered a hardship posting in the international
market. This meant that anyone working in a bank, multinational
company etc. liable to be posted to the city could expect a hefty
financial incentive and many would still refuse to come. I always
found the idea of hardship a bit hard to swallow. I mean look at
the lifestyle of the average firang. They get to live in the best
residential areas, have well-trained household staff, get easy entry
into clubs, get invited to homes and parties. Is that so hard?
But
okay, one must admit, there are certain negatives such as lack of
greenery, fresh air, schools, the difficulty of negotiating one’s
way through an alien language, an alien mindset, traffic etc. etc.
Of the many foreigners I’ve met who at some time or the other
made Mumbai their home I usually found one of three approaches.
There were those who threw themselves headlong into the local life.
Jonah Blank, anthropologist and author, for instance, spent some
months in the city studying the Bohra community and still talks
nostalgically of his home in an old creaky Colaba flat, the colourful
ambience and the old lady beggar on the street he virtually adopted.
Then there was this young French boy who used to zigzag all over
town on a scooter on which he had installed a miniature temple,
drawing curious stares from passers-by.
Compared
to such robustness is the moony-eyed approach. As editor of a magazine
it was my fate to wade through many contributions from Westerners
clearly labouring under the impression that a few months amidst
the squalor of Mumbai had taught them the meaning of life. But terribly
written though they usually were, they at least represented a desire
to explore and expand horizons. My least favourite city guests are
the ones who I guess most closely represent the old-fashioned NRI
abroad. An American girl I met recently for instance told me she
had lived an entire year in Mumbai but could not name a single locality
outside Juhu, where she had lived with a Gujarati family. Then there
was Ian, who came to India via South East Asia and spent all his
time grumbling about the weather, the pollution, the lack of hamburger
joints and massage parlours.
All
these briefly known acquaintances and others floated through my
mind a few days ago. The cause was a somewhat startling discovery.
I had been to a Manglorean restaurant a few days before. And while
we were waiting for the food to arrive I noticed that I was one
of probably half a dozen Indians. Everybody else — and the
restaurant was full to bursting — was either Caucasian or from
South East Asia. Now I know this is tourist season and fried fish
and gassi is a bit of a hit with travellers. But my fellow diners
looked far too comfortable to be just passing through. They were
clearly here to stay. Nor was it the first time I’d noticed
them. Go to Trishna, Apoorva, Mahesh, Geoffreys or any other pub
and you see them — young and not so young professionals in
advertising, finance, social studies — in large numbers and
not out of place but very much at home in what should have been
alien surroundings.
This
is the effect of liberalisation. With India opening up its economy,
its jobs too have been floated in the international market. I don’t
know how Mumbai rates these days on the hardship scale but my guess
is it isn’t doing as badly as it used to. Also it is not just
the old-style privileged corporate employee who is coming to Mumbai
these days but also the young job seeker competing for jobs and
accommodation with his or her Indian counterpart. The bottomline
is that we are going to see a growing influx of foreigners in the
city. I have no problem with this development. Mumbai has always
thrived on the energy of migrants. And yet, given the complex relationship
India has always had with the foreigner, it will be interesting
to see how the city changes to accommodate this phenomenon.
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