City of Dreams

A rainy day brings a lot of memories. It has been almost eight years since I made my home in this small suburb of Mumbai. City life has been a mixed bag for me, as during the last years I made new friends, lost my closest friend, and watched the city’s healthcare infrastructure crumble under the pandemic. It’s almost ironic that I didn’t get the Coronavirus, since I live in the city with the worst infection rates. So, I have my reasons to believe that the city is not so unlucky for me. 

“Mumbai is maya,” a close friend told me years ago. Is that true, I wonder? Is Mumbai the place for only the super-rich or poor? Can’t the rest of the middle class survive and flourish here, too?  

People label you based on where you live within Mumbai, which means you are obliged to use the name of your building and neighbourhood to show where you fit on the scale of rich to poor. Money is a defining factor in the city, but it’s also about survival and professionalism.  

There are beautiful things about the city. The monsoon, for example, is to die for. It takes me back to Kottayam and my memories of childhood there. The city has shown me that women can travel safely, even in the middle of the night. Yes, I have travelled during the night in Bangalore, where I studied and worked for seven years, but Mumbai is different. Here, you don’t have to be vigilant constantly. There are clusters of women happily walking on the road, without worry. 

So, yes, I love this city. It doesn’t judge you like Bangalore. It lets you be. I have lived some of the happiest moments of my life in this city. It was here I first walked alone; here where I ran my first marathon; here that I won prizes for a dance competition. 

Will I stay forever? I don’t know. But for the time being, I love the space, the freedom and the independence this city gives me.