Mumbai

Mumbai is safe, and how!

I don’t know why I didn’t tell you about this incident when it happened, in the beginning of March.

~!~

My room-mate went out of our building to make a phone call. After half an hour, he returned back, learned and how!

A group of around 10 boys reached our neighbour mithai-wallah (sweets shop). They asked the man at the counter if he was a Marathi. Then they asked him to speak in Marathi. Confirmed, that he was not a Marathi, though he spoke in Marathi, they asked him to “pack up and catch the first train next morning” towards his home. Then one of the boys asked him to pack one type of pede (milk-cakes) for them. When he started packing it, they made sure that he packs only the variety of milk-cake that they wanted. Hungry that they were, they also ate some sweets there. And then they moved to the next shops, repeating the ritual.

~!~

Our area is dominated mainly by Gujaratis, and then Rajasthanis. And the road-side vendors come from UP and Bihar. We never imagined such an incident would happen in our locality.

From the next morning, Mahalakshmi Dosa Center closed down, and it is still closed. The sweets-shop from whom they received forceful-donation of milk-cakes, increased the rate of samosas from Rs 4 to Rs 5, and Kachoris from Rs 5 to Rs 6. (To confirm the relation, the older sweet shops in the area didn’t increase their rates.) The laundry wallah, who comes from UP, increased his ironing rate, as did the pop-corn wallah.

Thanks God, the Mewad ice-cream wallah who comes from Rajasthan didn’t increase his rates…  And the chai wallah, who comes from Bihar managed to make cutting-chia at Rs 2.5.

~!~

Many of my friends and family members asked me how Mumbai was during the crisis. I always told them that only some taxi-wallahs were targeted. After this incident, I began saying that only road-side vendors were targeted.

I told you about the Bihari security guard at our housing society. In the height of anti-migrant crisis, morning newspaper reported that a group of men attacked and murdered a Bihari housing society guard near Pune, by stones and rods, after enquiring about his home town. From then on, every time I saw our own security-guard, my fear returned. The same security guard, who comes from Darbhanga in Bihar, has not yet returned from his home; he went on Holi to visit his home after 2 years.

His fellow villagers will ask him: “Beta, Mumbai safe hai naa?”

What will he reply?

Picture courtesy: [Link]