Of course I was wrong. The whole attack was in utter seriousness and I watched in disbelief as skirmishes broke out on the streets. Taxi drivers were beaten, cinema halls vandalised and innocents terrorised. The situation seems to be settling down but I think the damage has been done. And these scars will not be erased that easily. This is not the first time a call for ‘Maharashtra for the Maharashtrians’ has been made. I don’t need to give anyone a history lesson on what has happened in the past. It’s dredged up often enough. And one has come to expect inflammatory statements from politicos across the board.

What surprises me—and hugely disappoints me—is the passive acceptance of this non-secular behaviour by the ‘original’ people of the state. Famed for their intellectual prowess, their culture and literature, I can’t understand why we haven’t seen a single spontaneous procession on the streets denigrating this attack on our fundamental rights. I am singling out the ‘rightful’ owners of Maharashtra to bear the onus of guaranteeing us our civil rights because the rest of us evidently don’t have the right to protest. The climate is such in the city that if you don’t have the right surname you are viewed as anti-Maharashtra.

There have been sporadic protests but either they have been politically motivated or lacked teeth. Where is the kind of demonstrations that erupted on the streets of New York and London against Bush’s decision to enter Iraq? Our population alone can guarantee sheer numbers (ask the residents of Shivaji Park). And yet, the intelligentsia of the state are sitting. Quietly.

I am deliberately not taking names because I refuse to fall into the blame game. It’s never the fault of an individual but if Mumbai (or can I call it Bombay without expecting a protest march?) is losing its cosmopolitan character it’s because our hosts are no longer hospitable. And we must start accepting that. Forget the time you greeted you with open arms and celebrated for your difference. Now, only the region of your birth is significant.

So let’s call their bluff. Let’s quit the city. En masse. Perhaps the dissenting voices are actually doing us a favour. Mumbai is a giant, crumbling slum. And yet what makes it an extraordinary city is the people that live here. Once everyone leaves, there will be nothing left but a hollow shell with faint echoes of a glorious past. Aamchi Mumbai.