'Only One Thing Is Alive Here. The Spirit Of Man.'

Gerson Da Cunha
Former adman, convenor of Action for Good Governance and Networking in India (AGNI)
Intellectually the city has blown out its brain. A few decades ago, Bombay was the centre of anything new and different. It saw the likes of Homi Bhabha, Vikram Sarabhai and J.R.D. Tata. But now, the city has no intellectual stature. Creative artists have either left or now censor themselves. The intellectual life of the city has been crushed out of existence.

Mrinal Gore
Grassroots activist and JD leader
The unified and cosmopolitan character of Bombay has been replaced by divisions between religions and by the growing schism between the rich and the poor. In Bombay, you can also see very clearly the impact of the liberalisation policies on the poor. The divide between the well-to-do and poor sections has become wider. And the middle class, which used to be at the forefront of struggles for the poor, is today only interested in promoting its own interests.

Shyam Benegal
Filmmaker
Neighbourhoods are breaking down. Earlier you could build a community in your neighbourhood. The people you met on your street were people you knew. Today that has changed because of the speed with which your neighbourhood itself has been overhauled. It’s a city that is clogged, from all sides, in every way. A city the politicians are fooling with flyovers as symbols of development. What’s more dangerous is that every big city in the world has this character to rebuild itself, to contain its ills and find a new lease of life. But something is stopping us from doing that. We are just going down.

Javed Akthar
Poet
The riots changed something very abstract but substantial. People used to think that those things didn’t happen here. Those things happened in Bihar. Not in Bombay. But all that has changed now. The city has lost its innocence. It’s not as safe as it used to be earlier. But still there is one thing about Mumbai. Its resilience. I would like to believe that this city hasn’t changed for the worse, forever.

Ahilya Rangnekar
CPI(M) leader and trade unionist
Bombay has lost its concern and sensitivity for the poor. Crores of rupees are spent on the development of roads and bridges which are used by people who own cars. At the same time, the government has cracked down on hawkers in the name of clearing footpaths. These people have no other means of livelihood.

Pramod Navalkar
Shiv Sena leader
To say Mumbai has degenerated is to use a very mild word. The influx of people has almost finished this city off. Everybody comes here and finds his own space in the most disorderly manner possible. Right next to where I live, one day I found that some encroachers had taken over public space. I tried to get them evicted but one old lady showed me her proof of residence. A ration card. And what was her address on the ration card? The number of an electric pole!

There is no hope for Mumbai if this massive influx continues. Illegal residents should not be given the right to vote. Then we politicians will not have to protect them. That’s the only way the slums can vanish.

Jehangir Sabavala
Painter
There is a general downtrend. It’s strange that while I believe the city is still rich and powerful, there also seems to be a sort of depression that has crept in. This is not a depression that has been contributed by the fall of the financial markets alone. This is a gloom that seems to have no reasons but can be found in everything that is tangible and intangible about the city.

Raveena Tandon
Actress
I was born and brought up in Mumbai and so I remember what a great place it was. Now I go for an outdoor shoot, even to a place like Bangalore and when I come back I fall sick. You can feel it in the air you breathe. The city has become one big slum. Even in places like Juhu and Lokhandwala, where I live, you cannot escape the dust and the noise. I used to love driving in Mumbai but today I should be crazy to do it. Every place is so so far away because it takes that long to get there.

M.F. Husain
Painter
What a beautiful city this was! But today there is a total collapse. It’s a disaster. In every field, in everything. From one piece of stone to a whole mountain, Bombay has been destroyed. But there is one thing alive in this city. The spirit of man.

Vijay Tendulkar
Playwright
I believe it’s too late for Mumbai to be saved. The breakdown of infrastructure due to the alarming rate of growth has made life very difficult. There is no political initiative as the politicians’ priorities are not about improving life in the city. Political intolerance has marred the democratic fabric of Mumbai irreparably but I do feel that despite all this, culturally Mumbai is still rich. Art is alive and thriving.

S.S.Tinaikar
Former municipal commissioner
Bombay is a city of great contrasts and I think that it continues to provide very well for the well-to-do. The rich have not been deprived of anything and continue to get the best of the city. It is in the services and amenities available to the poor that there is a serious decline. More than 70 per cent of the population lives in slums with poor water, sanitation and health facilities.

Charles Correa
Architect
Right up to the ’50s, Mumbai was a world city—part of a network that connected right around the globe. Since then, while it has grown bigger and bigger in size, it seems to have grown smaller in outlook. What was once a great world city of 3 million has gradually become a provincial conglomeration of 14 million inhabitants. Why did this happen? Primarily because the politicians and bureaucrats who run this city have no idea of what makes it tick. Cities are much more than just brick and mortar—they are also (and above all) networks of interaction, of people and institutions, of goods and services. Dividing them along communal lines is just about the dumbest thing that you can do. In any of today’s world cities—viz Amsterdam, Hong Kong, New York—Arab deals with Jew, Hindu with Muslim, Christian with Jain. Did you know that 16th century Goa was the largest and most prosperous trading centre east of Rome? And do you know what killed it? Not the plague, as we are told, but the Inquisition, brought by St Francis Xavier. This is what forced the merchants, both Jew and Hindu, to flee to Cochin and Macao—where they set up shop, and created prosperity all over again. Who lost in the process? Not the merchants—but Goa herself. What kills a city are not earthquakes and bombings—but the dismantling of the network of human trust and exchange that constitute its lifeblood.

P.S. Pasricha
Additional director-general of police, Maharashtra
Bombay has expanded much beyond its capacity and we are paying the price in terms of the quality of life, the degradation of the environment and the value system. I used to know Andheri, Borivili and Dahisar like the back of my hand, but today they have changed beyond recognition. Unless the centre of gravity is shifted from Greater Bombay, it will be difficult to combat this. There was an attempt to make Navi Mumbai self-sufficient but it did not work and people ended up coming to the island city for work. The need of the hour is to have well developed and clearly demarcated satellite cities around Greater Bombay, which are separated by "green lungs" in order to improve the city’s environment.

Naushad
Music director
Bombay has changed so much in every aspect. When I first came here in 1937, it was safe and clean and beautiful—a girl could go out at 2 am and be safe. Today you are unsafe in your own houses. Every residential building is like a jail, every house has grills and double doors—nothing is safe. The terrorist threat, the murders all put such fear in every person here. I think Dadasaheb Phalke who started the film industry here with his first film Raja Harishchandra must be very unhappy when he sees that even our films advocate violence and terrorist activities. The huge traffic has spoilt the city where at one time we could sit in a garden and do a recording—today inside a music room it is too noisy to record. Every citizen was happy to live here earlier and proud to be a Bombayite—today our freedom of movement is lost. There is so much fear. I’d say the cosmopolitan character remains in our memory or in books—no one feels safe here.