Yeh Hai Crazy-Land Meri Jaan

WHAT'S IN A NAME? EVERYTHING!

After three back to back movie reviews I hate to do a movie based blog again but such are the compulsions of politics that Bollywood somehow gets into the picture.

Hours after the first screenings of “Wake Up Sid”, Raj Thackrey and his goons took to vandalism to protest the use of Bombay instead of Mumbai in the film.

However this is not a political post and I am not even going to get into the political pros and cons of this argument. That is presuming there are any pros in this lunatic’s hijacking of issues that just don’t matter to the common man.

Anyway the issue is more cultural.

The Glittering South Bombay

Yes the city used to be named Mumbai, the British then bastardized it to Bombay before Raj’s equally crazy uncle re-claimed the ‘Maharastrian honour’ by having getting it changed back to Mumbai.

But that’s not the point.

Bombay/Mumbai is a glaring example of contradictions.

Where wealth and poverty exist in both extremes and where the billion dollar houses overlook Asia’s largest slum Dharavi. (BTW when we say Asia’s biggest, doesn’t it also mean the world’s biggest? After all do other continents have slums? Wait a minute… I almost forgot the only other place that makes India look like a 1st world country. Africa.)

So in actuality the capital of Maharashtra is both Mumbai as well as Bombay.

The marble and teak mansions on the glittering Marine Drive are in Bombay.
The poor slumdogs living in Dharavi are in Mumbai.
The ones who struggle to eat out of the garbage dumps are in Mumbai while the others who (ironically) also struggle to eat to remain size zero are in Bombay.
The Taj, Oberois & CRV’s are Bombay. The jhoparpattis & rickshaws are Mumbai.
The gleaming flyovers are Bombay. The make shift shacks under the flyovers are Mumbai.
Your pedigreed Chihuahuas are in Bombay. The rabid mongrels in Mumbai.

Dharavi in Mumbai

The Sid of the movie who drives a CRV, lives in a stand alone bunglow, listens to iPods and plays on his PSP while flashing his plastic in store after store does not live in Mumbai.

The poor soul probably doesn’t even know what Mumbai really is. So when he shows Bengali Aisha around town he obviously is doing so about Bombay. The Bombay he knows.


After all his idea of a simple, ‘poor’ birthday is celebrating it with an impromptu ‘cake’ made of Bread and Jam.
For the Slumdogs that would be a bloody feast.

So why should he even mention Mumbai.

He doesn’t live there. No one he knows lives there. Not even his servant.
For the love of God, Chottu is better (and more in-vogue) dressed than most college students in Bareilly and Patna leave alone in Dharavi.

Maybe what the Thackrey clan really ought to concentrate on, is getting the Mumbai-kars on par with the Bombay-ites.

But then again, if they did do that, who would vote for the Marathi Adams Family.
And maybe, just maybe, they DO know that.

And btw when asked in the movie, Aisha Banerjee mentions that she just moved from Calcutta. Note: Calcutta not Kolkatta.

But I don’t hear of any protests and vandalism in the City of Joy. Somehow the Bongs don’t seem to have this hangup? (just don’t mention this to Lady Thackrey of Kolkatta…. The Sublimely Crazy Ms. Mamata )

I wonder why. Any thoughts?

And what about the electronically gifted citizens of Bangaluru?

Till Next Time

Luv

Vish

P.S. By the way, the pure desi Mumbaikar Raj look-i'm-as-crazy-like-my-uncle Thackrey incidentallyt drives around in an AUDI SUV.
Shouldn't he be riding in the very indian NANO?

But Wait. He can't. Coz in that small car, where would he fit his massive EGO, IGNORANCE & FACISM.