In the City Ghost

I feel low. Well, I am a pessimist usually. Most of the times, there is no need for a reason. That’s the general mood of the life I live. I also like being one. Because from the deepest of my lows, I find some amazing insights- insights about myself, about the times and society that we live in! Ah the mental stimulation of being in that space!

But today I have a reason. I saw ‘Sacred Games’. The second season! And it reminded of the most quintessential part of me. Bombay! Sacred Games was written by Vikram Chandra around 2006. It was about Bombay, it was about crime in the city, it was about people who had made the city their home,  it was about the relationships that they forged with each other (out of choice or compulsion). It was a best seller, a must- read novel to know about the city.

Then why did I not include it as one of my texts for PhD thesis? I went back to ‘Baumgartner’s Bombay’ and ‘Ravan And Eddie’, the two novels that we studied as texts during our M A classes. I included ‘Shantaram’. And when my thesis was getting published in a book, I included ‘Baluta’. I had to obviously read all books that were written about Mumbai, in order to make an informed choice about the texts. And ‘Sacred Games’, as a crime thriller, obviously did not fall in the paradigm of ‘spatial studies’. But ‘Shantaram’ was also a thriller. I guess it was in the way the novel treated the city. A lot has been written about how the city is also a character in the novel. It obviously didn’t intrigue me enough.

Well I write this piece in order to reclaim my love and understanding of the city. I lived in the city for 29 years. I learnt, unlearnt, relearnt, talked, observed, researched, understood, walking street by street, cinema hall by cinema hall, local train by local train, railway station by railway station, community by community, people by people. I had loved, not just once, but more than once, and experienced and expressed those many LOVES across the city in so many ways. I had cried, inside my heart, out loud, in the train, in the bus, on the road, in the rains, in the heat. I had laughed, with friends and strangers. I had smiled at so many of them, some smiled, some didn’t. I understood the meaning of so many festivals and cultural expressions here- a feeling that people shared with each other for nostalgia of their mulk, their native place. And longing and nostalgia was a legitimate feeling and expression then. Because it was just that! Everyone who had to the city had become the city itself. He was a Bihari or Gujarati or Tamilian, but he was a Bombaiyaa, in the same breath. Then 1992 happened. Every day, some bit of Bombay disappeared from here or there. The city was getting lost and we could not do anything about it. We didn’t even think of it that way. Because the city lived within us! How could the city die?

The romance of North India had still caught my fancy, every time I visited my native village in Rajasthan. The vastness of space as opposed to cramped surrounding of Mumbai, led me to believe that in order to understand yourself and understand relationships and experience love, I must move out of Mumbai. Mumbai had given me recognition, but more heartaches and burns. At that time, it seemed that North India might heal me.

It has been 13 years that I have been out of Mumbai. I haven’t gone back, I can’t go back. I have written a book on Mumbai and the act of walking in the city. I had just thought that I had repaid my debt to the city and all that it taught me. But Mumbai never leaves you, right?

On a certain day in life, I went to Banke Bihari temple in Brindavan to see the Holi of flowers. As expected, I found myself struggling for breath in the mass crowd of tall men. Caught in between the chests and stomachs, I was so sure that I must now die. Just when I was getting ready to die, a voice came from within, ‘Arre Virar Local aa gayi!” Now there was no looking back. I put my spectacles aside and used all the tricks that we Mumbaikars know, and hustled through that space and saved myself. Something that we did every day in Bombay, became a big one then! Claustrophobic is what I feel when I am with people! Who did what to whom, that is a matter of long debate.

Turning back to ‘Sacred Games’, I think there are three things that I would like to touch upon. Of course, the novel is set in Mumbai, but it ends there. Sartaj or Parulkar or Jojo, they have all hardened in and because of their surroundings and deeds, but it is difficult to find that connection with destiny that it happened in Mumbai. Of course, in a very elite, layered sort of manner, one can see the influence of the city, but no character is given a chance to elaborate upon his/ her relationship with the city. And in my thesis, the novel does not find mention therefore.

Having said that, the series has taken alienation to a totally another level. Of course, the best of talent (technical and creative) in the industry have given shape and form to the series. And since the series has outgrown the book and taken inspiration from contemporary global scenario and events, it probably might not be even relevant to think that ‘Sacred Games’ is any more about Mumbai. But when I saw the series, I thought, this could have been Delhi or New York or any other city for that matter. Why use ‘Sacred Games’? Why not write something new? ‘Leila’ was original, despite inspired by socio political realities.

The second point is that this bunch of highly talented actors, writers and directors, haven’t allowed the city to spill its (un) magic beans on them. Of course, they have taken a very brave step- they have created their own niche space in the mainstream, family business driven Bollywood and forced the mainstream to give due credit to them. A trend that began with Anurag Kashyap a decade ago, it has reached full fruition in Nawaz, Tripathi or Ayushman or Varun Grover and equally skilled directors and song writers. It was very exhilarating to see North India, its dialects, its lingo, its culture, its ethos, getting depicted by its own people (in contrast to K3G’s Chandni Chowk). These people had not quit an ounce of their roots, they had seen all of Hollywood, they had mastered the skill, technique and possessed the confidence to create amazing creative pieces. They do command a lot of respect for their achievements. Even if they have been living in Mumbai for a decade or more, their technical and creative methods are a reflection of their value systems. But I fail to see their connections to the city. Black Friday was about Mumbai, but it was more about the history of the bomb blasts. Bombay Velvet failed miserably.

A city (read Bombay) changes a person. A city influences a person. A city makes a person see and appreciate other points of view. A city allows a person to find solace in things that s/he would not have found otherwise. A city impacts the choices of a person. A city makes him/ her humble. A city makes him/ her smile at the one who looks troubled. A city comforts through its many spaces and people. Bollywood’s past has seen so many Bombay people, who came from so many places and became its lovers. The love/ hate for the city was visible in everything they did. (Ham bhi is zakhm ke maare hue hai. Aaj bahut din baad shahar ke pyaar me likhne baithe hai. Kai logon se ishq hua, lekinlikha nahi kabhi, par shahar ka ishq chute hi nahi banta)

But, how and where do I see and find Mumbai in these new artistic and creative endeavours, especially in ‘Sacred Games’? To attribute Sartaj’s lack of self-worth to the relationship with his father, is a simplistic take on the otherwise interesting literary character. The city could have added so many layers to his lack of self-worth (the common disease in any middle class Mumbaikar). I think that these creative practitioners must take the city and in its influences in account, while writing about characters of Mumbai. I don’t know if that is true and valid for other cities. Someone, who loves his/ her city as much as I do, can engage in a discussion with me.

Of course, all of this can be thrown off as generalisations, and I am very sure that there are exceptions to the rule. But the third thing, or rather a possibility that emerges out of it is the creation of an alternate film production center in another place, city. Why make these products out of Mumbai? Now that they are financially and commercially successful, they must look for possibilities for alternate locations, a location (maybe in North India), that will allow themselves to express their creative endeavours, without having to dilute for Bollywood. With so many film training institutions and their graduate battalions seeking employment in the country, it just make so much sense to create an alternate center for film production. Why seek approvals from Bollywood? Anyways, Bollywood grabs every chance at appropriation, so every good work has and will get its due. Seek a place that one can call one’s own, get comfortable there and make your creative endeavour a little more connected to the place. 

Don’t relegate my city to the background! My city is so much larger than this! My city resides in me! It resides in that average person who travels by the local train and thanks God s/he is alive every day. It is their city because that’s the only thing they can claim as their own. The city and its memories are the only good things that have remained in this world captured by hatred and majoritarianism!