Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Maximum City, Minimum Hearts



Mumbai- The land of opportunities, the city with people having "the spirit". How often do we hear all this on news channels when it rains and people are stuck or when there's a blast. But how true it is?? Is this city really a Maximum city??

          The dahi kachori was spicy and finger licking good. We were chattering with each other as usual when i heard a mild sound of crash

 "Thud"
 " What was that??" sunand asked me
 "Lets finish off with the kachori then we will see" i said

 After finishing the kachori we decided to check out what was happening....

 "You mother f***er, you broke my helmet, now pay me Rs 500 or forget your bag" a man in his late 40's with an average built was shouting.
 "Sir please, I have to deliver this bag with sarees to a shop, please sir i beg to you" a very tall but thin man probably in early 30's and an outsider to the city was begging.
"You can take the bag, just give me my Rs 500 and the bag is yours" the older man said
 "Please dont waste our time and shell out the money" the old man's daughter, probably in her late teens stepped in with her view.

 "hey son , leave it..dont get so angry" a very old lady said in marathi
 "Hey old lady, you better get lost from here, dont say anything between us" the man replied in marathi
 
  The middle aged man with his daughter entered a doctor's clinic next to the eatery, the poor tall man followed them to the clinic. The middle aged man started pushing and shoving this guy.This is when me and friend decided to step in and do something.

   "What exactly happened??" i asked the poor tall man
   "I lost my balance due to the bus coming very close to me and  ended up hitting the helmet on this fellows bike" the poor man said
   "Its ok uncle, give the bag back, in any case your helmet doesn't seem to have an ISI mark" i said
   "Thanks to this poor fellow, you must have realized how weak your helmet is" sunand said
   "Weak or strong, i had spent money on it" the middle aged man said
   "The guy looks poor, leave him for the sake of humanity" i said
   " If you are so much of a human, then pay up" he said
   " Now c'mon uncle" sunand said
   " Ok lets go to police stn, we will settle it all there" the middle aged man said in a threatening tone
   " Yeah i insist we go to police station, i can accumulate 100 people who saw you stealing the bag from the poor fellow, lets go now itself" i said
  
         He gave the bag to the fellow with a hint of disdain, but while parting he said one thing which has now become very common...

     "maharashtra made rahaysa naa?? mag marathi mansa la respect dya" (" You want to stay in maharashtra ? then respect marathi people")
    
       The poor fellow, not getting a word of what was said to him left the place happy and thanking us profusely.
  
                The question to be raised here is, What were so many people doing there outside an eatery? enjoying the show?? Except for an old lady, nobody cared to interfere. The middle aged man didn't show any mercy to the lady and even shouted on her, what was every one doing? Everyone was a mute spectator. Is this city really a maximum city with maximum spirit??

               I would say that everything we see in news channels and films is a total hype, no one has time in this city to help people or rather i should say have the courage to stand up to something wrong. Eve teasers roam freely on stations teasing college going girls, who stands up ?? no one

             Then how and why is such hype and hoopla given to the city's spirit and resilience ?? No it is not the spirit of the city which makes people travel in the local trains just a day after a blast in the very same local, it is the helplessness of the people which makes them do it. We mumbaikars are no brave soldiers who love taking risks, it is just that we have no other option. The people are not even brave enough to stand up to injustice, forget the terror and blasts.

           If this showed the lack of courage in mumbaikars then the last sentence by the middle aged man showed the intolerance and false pride of many mumbaikars . The hearts of the people have shrunk so much so that they can feel and see only their family and no one else. They can't tolerate an outsider in their premises. The rich south mumbai people don't feel like travelling to the suburbs as "Suburbs??yukkk , the life lies in South mumbai".


        Wake up mumbai from the self attained mask of resilience to see what the reality is.

        This is a Maximum city, but with minimum hearts............

5 comments:

Ekta said...

awesome post! cheers!
one thing i would like to ask you, does actaully some discrimination between north indians and people of mumbai exist? or its just blow out of proportion for political reasons??

neeraj said...

Dear Ms Ekta,

I am a Marathi manoos and speaking for my people I have to say that we warmly and generously welcome people from all over the country. We want to live in peace and harmony. But for that to happen we also expect them to respect our culture our language our CITIES and its LAW. If you settle here but dont respect the LOCAL POPULATION or our language and law then we sure will get disappointed.

Thank You.

neeraj said...

I dont knw about the incident mentioned. If that is indeed true then the man is surely wrong.

The above mentioned aspect is wrongly used by political parties for gaining political mileage.

Abhishek said...

No ,as neeraj said.....marathi's r warm people but then some people are misusing them and some of them blindly following

Ekta said...

@abhishek: thanks for that!

@neeraj: yeah, i totally agree to your point.. respect for all communities is desired everywhre!

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