So I was watching "Enemy at the Gates" the other day. For people who have not seen it, the plot revolves around two sharpshooters in opposite camps in the world war, trying to kill the other and win the proverbial bout. Well, for a such a movie, there is bound to be a sizeable number of shots fired, people bloodied and killed. Saw it a while back and sat down to watch it again, to relive the moments. But all I got to see were dialogues. All the shooting scenes were cut from the script. All the murders and killings removed. Even innocent kisses failed to get past the censor board. I was left with a feeling that was a concoction of fury, amazement and disappointment. I was ready to take a gun and kill the editor point blank, wouldn’t even need the scope.
Not to be undone are my society people. Now mumbai is a city of immigrants. It’s a city where young people out of colleges and universities come to work, earn and burn. When I first came to mumbai, the thing that I liked was that there are every strata of people here, from the poorest to the vulgar rich. Also all ages, from all regions of india with the same objective, make a living. No doubting that this is the financial capital of india. So first there was this tomfoolery about marathi manoos, as if they were rightful owners of the state and jobs should be reserved for them. Well, if that does become their stance, there is no doubt jobs will move elsewhere, bases will shift to other avenues. Good then that this died down. But the more perplexing trend is of no flats to be leased to bachelors. This reason alone makes a more compelling argument for marrying than anything else. But again a higly skewed perspective of the bygone generations. Anywhere else I would have accepted this conservatism, but to witness the same in mumbai is disheartening to say the least. Then there is the gunda mentality of the ruling polity that mandates the name of shops and organizations to be spelled in marathi or hindi. While we yearn to give an outlook of an open society, such censures, bans and diktats just accentuates our hypocricy. Time will only tell if people here truly open up or implode under the weight of all the rules it puts up under various pretexts. And im surely hoping that it is the former rather than the latter that happens.
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I m not a supporter of the said political party, or their ways. But what I do feel is, regionalism exists almost everywhere, albeit subtely. Whether it is two Tamilians who speak in Tamil only when there are non Tamilians supposed to be in the conversation, or whether Karnataka subtely does the reservations for their state people. Signboards in other cities that I have visited are certainly in their local languages, so why the fuss, if here they do so? Perhaps, burning buses is not the way to implement a rule like this.
The fact is, its only in Maharashtra, that this aggression has become so vocal, thus ruining the name of the people of the state that so far have/had always welcomed people from all parts of India. Mumbai, Pune, Nagpur, and so many other cities are standing testimony to that fact. In no other state in India are there so many non-localites. Its unfortunate, that its common man Maharashtrians and not the politicians who have been chastised for no fault of their own.
I m not for not getting people from other parts to Mumbai, but , if you see the people falling off the roofs of trains, and hanging by their fingers in the local train, I m sure, anyone can understand how terribly stressed the infrastructure in Mumbai is. The influx of more and more people from everywhere, including rural Maharashtra, who come and build more jhuggis and steal electricity and water and are a burden to the resources, will only lead to disaster. If more and more homeless people keep pouring into Mumbai very shortly it ll turn into one huge city swamped by the mafia and chaos before it can even dare to think of Shanghai ever again. I wish there could be a visa for coming to Mumbai…only those Maharashtrians or otherwise, with homes or the possibility of having a legitimate roof over his head be allowed to come here!
u speak of the problems of mumbai as if they are unique, the answer to the creaking infrastructure does not lie in issuing a visa for maharashtrians (which i find wholly absurd), it lies in the polity building more infrastructure to support the increasing population and to demotivate homeless from coming, to crack a whip against any illegal encroachments and hutments that come up instead of playing votebank politics. also when u say that just because some other state has regional bias therefore its okay for maharashtra also to have it is again a very myopic view of the things, if i would have my way, no state should/would be allowed to do anything that makes divisions between people. we must understand that we are indians and not mumbaiites, delhiites etc...they are just zones created for better governance, and should have nothing to do with regionalism. and also, u may admit to it or not, nothing that the politicians do can be achieved without the complicit approval or support of the localites and even if it was minority, i see for myself that a very many of them now carry this false sense of pride for the city as if "unke baap ki hai". i like mumbai better than most cities, but i feel that it has the potential to become a great city by accepting diversity, and should not collapse under its own misplaced sense of pride.
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