Mee Mumbaikar!

Reading the blogs, I notice a subtle tension between those who refer to themselves as Mumbaikars or Mumbaiites. With no axe to grind, I call it as I see it.

When our city was called Bombay, we were all Bombayites. We are no longer Bombay, and the colonial-sympathizers need to just get on with the program.

But what do you call a resident of Mumbai? In my post from a few weeks ago, I reluctantly used Mumbaiite, even though it did not sound right. As the word rolled over my tongue, it seemed to catch. A cultural misfit - an elitist "ite" grudgingly grafted onto a gritty "Mumbai." So incongruous, as Laxmi would have intoned. If I had known then, I would have preferred Mumbaikar.

Mumbaikar has a certain resonance, characteristically Mumbai. In hindsight its seems so obvious - a perfect match of the indispensable marathi bai and the enigmatically reserved 'do-er', kar.

The "-ite" ending on Mumbai seems elitist, particularly in this graft. A sort of pseudo-phoren lingo, best vocalized with a western drawl and a flourish of the stylishly held cigarette. Walk down the streets of Mumbai today and can you imagine that paan wallah, fruit wallah, dabbah wallah or zhaddu wallah mouthing Mumbaiite? Guess not! Mumbaiite seems the exclusive domain of the Peddar Rd-stomping, Barista sipping crowd.

Yes, Mumbaiite is exclusive, in that it excludes the likes of Ramu busing tables at the tea shop, or these laborers pulling Haath Gaadis, or these folks enjoying vada paav. It excludes all those who make the city go, be it in fits and starts! Excludes those police - men and women, picking up the 'pieces' after the 7/11 terrorist acts. It excludes that fabled, but tired, Mumbai spirit.

Mumbaikar absolutely! It is more democratic, a social leveller, inviting everyone irrespective of which school you sudied at - if at all, irrespective of your social class. Mumbai belongs equally to those who ride posh cars and flick cigarette butts out the window, as it does to the sweepers picking up the butts. Mumbaikar, invites you to this city of broad shoulders and a big heart.

Portrait of a Mumbaikar: Street sweeper at the Gateway of India (previously posted).

x-posted from Arun Shanbhag's journal.