Why Mumbai is My Favorite City in the World

Part I: My first brush with this city

It was Bombay to me when I was 12. I lived in Delhi and visited it once with family. As an adult, I caught on to the word Mumbai like everyone else. Mumbai sounded chic!

I got to live there first time at 24 when I was interning for 2 months at a bank in the city.

In the beginning, the hype of this mega city made me starry-eyed, but when I went to live there, I felt annoyed by the hype and hoopla surrounding it.

The hungry kids on the road, half-naked people, swarms and swarms of them all around. Felt scary often. The unnerving tension and chaos on the roads, and the tiny spaces people lived in. It was too much for me within a week of arriving.

Even the sea lost its charm, like the humongous heritage buildings. Waking up every morning to rush to the office, I wondered — Why Mumbai? Why so much hype?

Not realizing I would change my statement drastically and within 2 months.

The First Impressions

When I walked around looking lost even on the roads I passed daily or travelling in trains jostling to find a space to stand, I was usually on the cusp of breaking down.

Misery loves company. I got closer to a friend from college who also interned in Mumbai.

We loved to ridicule Mumbai, and it soon became a habit which kept growing. When I had awkward incidents in local buses and trains, I remarked how people lacked patience here.

The irony was, it included me.

Overcoming shocks

When there was a week left in the 2-month internship, I remember my friend praising Mumbai to another friend of ours as we sat in the famous Leopold cafe.

I felt betrayed when she said she liked Mumbai. Here was somebody I loved to hate Mumbai with, and they had turned. My friend gauged from my reactions I couldn’t swallow her suddenly developed Mumbai love.

On my way back from Leopold, I received a text message from her. She said, ‘She liked Mumbai because of me, as we explored it together.’

We had been to Marine Drive, Worli, Bandra, Pali Hill, and many other beautiful sea-facing locations. And it was fun.

I sighed with relief at her message, which explained her unusual behavior. It seemed she was leaving Mumbai in two days, and feeling nostalgic about our time here. I told myself, I won’t miss Mumbai, for sure.

My last week in Mumbai

I cheerfully told everyone in the office in my last week how I was done with Mumbai and yearning to go back to home sweet home — Delhi. I explained why Delhi was a better city with its sprawling greenery, smoother roads, and cleanliness by Mumbai standards to anyone who offered an ear.

I had seen every bit of Mumbai by choice.

The worst rains fill every place up to the knees. I was stuck on Kurla station in the middle of the night alone. The 10-minute journey took 2 hours and I remember complaining about it to a stranger at 1 am on the train.

I had travelled far and wide and knew about every place in Mumbai, and even though I was born in Delhi, I had never explored Delhi like this. I needed help in Delhi to get to any famous spot like Greater Kailash or Vasant Vihar, especially if it was late evening.

Mumbai became familiar even though it stretched me. One day, it rained for over 24 hours. I found almost no attendance in the office the next day as most people sat at home, with local train services disrupted. Mumbai, the financial capital of India, came to a standstill.

I had reached the office early by bus somehow, but I did not know how I’d go back. A brave taxi driver agreed to take me halfway across the city when others said no, saying it wasn’t possible to reach back in such a situation.

I did not know which narrow streets he took to make it happen, but I was home in 2 hours. Even the usual journey took 3 hours on a good day.

Reminiscing about it

I landed back in Delhi after a nerve-wracking last week. And then it hit how much I missed Mumbai.

For months, I could feel something amiss. And a deep sense of belonging, which hadn’t been there for Delhi. I didn’t know a place could feel so much your own. It was hard to explain why I felt this way.

This is when I saw clearly how Mumbai was different. Everyone I met in Mumbai, whether a local, a traveller, or a temporary visitor, felt like they belonged there.

Superficially, Mumbai was a gigantic pile of mess. Yet, what I now saw was the smell of life in it, and its unwavering spirit to keep going. I had grown used to the energy of the city which never slept, even at 3 am.

Was it so difficult to understand this when I was there? I used to wonder.

When I could pace around Fort imagining how a terrorist named Kasab entered it and gunned down innocent lives. Or when I had gone about each heritage building marvelling at the architecture, and sometimes even feeling sorry for Mumbai.

It was the first city I explored on my own, way before travelling to 50 other countries. It was when I had only lived in North India, and coming to the west of the country seemed going too far.

I didn’t know I would get to live there again when I was done with my internship. And I would fall in love in this city.

More to come in Part II of this story about my connection with Mumbai.

I’d love to know if there’s a place you feel strongly attached to, which isn’t your hometown.

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