“The Spirit of Mumbai”, is a very clichéd adage, one that has been used many times in many different contexts. People say the spirit of Mumbai is its stoic treatment of things in the face of which many other cities would tremble. Some say the “Spirit” is a general callousness derived from the uncaring human beings that populate the city. But what is it really?
The day after the 1993 blasts, the people were up and about, back into their daily grind of commuting and trying to make ends meet. What might be interpreted as callous and uncaring is the actual “Spirit of Mumbai”: The splendid resilience shown by the citizens of this bustling metropolis, the ability to look fear in the face and say and those splendidly resonant words, “You go!”
When Mumbaikars face a problem, they deal with it by going on with their normal lives and try to make the best of it. During 26/11, the shops outside Nariman House remained shut. Before the attack, one of those shops, “Dinesh Frames” was just another in a line of shops for framing paintings. After, however, Dinesh, the perfect example of the metaphorical Mumbaikar, instead of moaning over his losses and the bullet holes left in his ceiling, got a brand new nameplate and cashed in on all the potential customers who came to get a glimpse of the site of the attack, saying “ Ho! Mee ikdech hotha javha tey mansa alle!”
This is what all those writers have been talking about for years, the inexplicable courage and resilience ingrained in all the people of this city, the ability to “take a sad song, and make it better”. This is what I believe constitutes the “Spirit of Mumbai”. Other people would take some time to wallow in their misery and pain, but Mumbaikars: We deal with it.
By going on with our normal lives, we are “sticking it to the man”, the man being all the people who are trying to segregate us and spark anarchy. When terrorists (Shiv Sena included) attack, their sole purpose is to segregate the people. They want us to turn our backs on one another. But till date, altruism has conquered all. On the 11th of July 2006, after the train bombings, the much-reviled slum dwellers living near the railway tracks, fellow commuters, local residents' groups and passers-by, without a second thought rushed to the help of victims. Slum dwellers were the first to run towards the local trains ripped apart in the blasts. Tearing through burning debris, people pulled out survivors, fashioned makeshift stretchers out of bedsheets and carted off the injured to the nearest hospital in autorickshaws and taxis.
But, back to the question at hand, “What is the spirit of Mumbai”? Truthfully, no one knows. All we know is that it is an unstoppable force that comes to the fore every time the city is struck by disaster. It is not just a pretty phrase, it is a reality, and it is our best weapon against any and all evil. It is what makes me proud to say, “Me Mumbaikar!”
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