Mumbai for Maharashtrians?

My husband left home this morning as usual for work – and called me five minutes ago (at 1 p.m.) from Bandra flyover – he has been stuck in a traffic jam since morning and taking detour after detour to find himself now in what is possibly the mother of them all. The only consolation, if that, is now he knows what this is all about – thousands of protesters making their way to a certain residence in Bandra East, demanding Mumbai for Maharashtrians.

And oh, now that I am ranting, may as well bring up the famous batti bandh campaign – the one that evoked mixed response (read very poor response) from Mumbai. The idea was to turn off lights for one hour in the city to save power and pitch in for climate change but some residents in Mumbai seemed reluctant to spend their Saturday even in partial darkness. I know I didn’t take part in it – but that is because I don’t live in Mumbai, I live in Navi Mumbai where we have power cuts for three hours everyday. And this is in “winter”; in the summer, the shut-down lasts from three to eight hours in a day. So much for voluntary participation in batti bandh. But yeah, I know, this is not Mumbai; even the protesters do not want Navi Mumbai – and can you blame them?

I think if this is what Mumbai is becoming, I am tempted to return it to the Maharashtrians. I know my husband is by now. Except neither of us know any other city where we would rather live and work. Mumbaikars, please don’t make me hate Bombay.