The 'Spirit of Mumbai'

There must be something seriously wrong with me. This is the conclusion that I have arrived at after failing to grasp the meaning of this magnificent and oft-heard expression. Not that it was through any lacking of effort on my part. Unlike my impatient and rigid friends (hi loky) or cousins (reading this koushik?), I had really tried for the last 7 years or so. The media, my wife, colleagues, neighbors all did their bit to educate me. They gave me examples, incidents, stories and facts that they said demonstrated this wonderful phenomenon. [4 pages deleted]. (I had started out giving examples but got slightly carried away).

Sometimes, when I have a quiet moment, sitting immobile in a bus in Sakinaka junction, waiting for the signal to turn green, watching at the rows of men squatting at the roadside with their dicks hanging out; at these times i sometimes wonder. Are Mumbaikars laughing at the expense of the rest of the world? Maybe this Spirit of Mumbai thing is the biggest hoax in the history of mankind, perpetrated by its 13 million people. Like when we were in college, after seeing a movie that was mind bogglingly bad, we used to tell all our friends about how great it was so that they would also suffer as we had suffered. Maybe these guys go home and have a huge laugh when they see people like us wading neck deep in water or paying 4 million bucks for a pigeon hole where the view comprises of a slum housing 14ooo people. I would love this to be correct explanation - at least it’s better than the alternative thought.

The alternative is scarier than any Stephen King novel i have read till date. Sometimes, late at night, when i am lying down and listening to the honking horns, the latest Hindi movie song blaring in someone's car stereo, smelling the fresh smells of shit and raw fish wafting in somehow through the closed window - sometimes in moments like this i break out into cold sweat thinking of the alternative explanation. 'Is it possible that these guys actually believe in this Spirit of Mumbai thing?' It’s a scary thought. Like those 70's zombie movies in which a group of guys visit a town where people are becoming zombies one by one and finally its just this boy and girl left and they are running running running while the entire town is closing in on them, amongst them their friends, people they grew up with, now with snarling mouths and vacant eyes, closer closer closer…until finally the guy collapses and gives up, too exhausted to run anymore, cut to a long shot and the crowd falls on him.

I DON’T WANT TO BE THAT GUY!!! I DON’T WANT TO BE LIKE THOSE ZOMBIES!!

I don’t want to feel proud of the fact that I love this hell and no one can make me hate it. I don’t want to shout out to the world ‘come on!! Give me more of your shit! I can take more and more and more’. I don’t want to be so spirited, so tough, so happening. I am just a weak, decadent, self-indulgent man who wants to spend the remaining years with some semblance of peace and dignity. I don’t want to be part of a 13 million member family, I do not deserve to part of this brotherhood and solidarity.

Somebody help me. Somebody throw me out of this utopia into the big bad world outside. Please.