Saddi Mumbai...Amchi Dilli

Today, I have completed almost 7 months in Mumbai. Seven very eventful months with both good as well as bad experiences. Now I think, I can safely tell anyone, that I have lived in Mumbai. I have spent 23 years of my life in Delhi, I was always a Delhiwala to the core and am proud of it. These two cities have a lot in common, but are equally different too. They both are dreamland, where people, not only from the different parts of the country, but from the different parts of the world come and try to live their dreams in real life. Both these cities make a lot people’s lives beautiful and at the same time break a lot of hearts too. It is said that whoever comes to these cities and manages to survive the first 6 months, never leaves them. I agree to it, as I have experienced both of them, but there is a difference between the experiences a person have in the first six fateful moths of his life in these cities. When you get down from the train at Delhi station for the first time, the first reaction is of disgust and rejection. You ask yourself, “oh god, where have I come?” As soon as you come out of Delhi station (and the matters are worse if its Hazarat Nizammuddin) you are surrounded by a pack of auto rickshaw drivers who are ready to take you anywhere in Delhi, but at double the normal fare. Your belief about this city being equivalent to hell strengthens. You tell yourself, “That’s it, this is the worst place I have ever seen, and I am going to leave from here as soon as possible.” This is how Delhi greets you usually for the first time. Then you start living there, knowing the people, places and the soul of the city and slowly it dawns on you that “No Yaar, this is not as bad as it looked like the first time.” You start to enjoy the spectacles it provides you, the co-existence of 100 year old buildings with the latest multistory , the language and food along with the people. After six months, you feel that things have changed, but for good and suddenly you are comfortable with Delhi and ready to accept it. Now, you don’t want to leave, because the city has accepted you and you have become a part of it. Contrast this to the experience in Mumbai, when a person first enters the city and gets down at CST station, he is immediately in awe of the city. He finds himself standing amidst the very same local trains and buildings where he has seen Shahrukh or Aamir standing in their movies. He starts thinking himself to be a hero of some bollywood blockbuster, who will be able to find money, fame and love in this very city. He sees Marine drive and remembers the first time he has seen it on the big screen and feels so good about it, he has arrived in the dreamland. He finds himself amidst the celebrities and the residents of the tinsel town and feels that one day, he will also be like them. Gradually the reality strikes in the form of daily routine of local trains, skyrocketing house rents, traffic jams and eating vada pav instead of proper lunch. The hero inside starts dying a slow death, daily life becomes a matter of survival, that too of the fittest. By the time he realizes that his city of dreams is much crueler than it seems on the silver screen, he has already lived there for about 6 months and have become habitual of these cruelties. He still has hope that one day he will be able to get the name and fame, which is why he will never leave. The city may not have provided him what he promised to himself, but it has given him hope. The difference is that Delhi shows you its ugly face, the moment you get down and from there any good experience is pleasant, whereas Mumbai, true to the nature of Bollywood, shows you its painted face, which becomes uglier as monsoon approaches and washes the make-up from it. The debate is endless, which is better Delhi or Mumbai, I have lived in both and I am still searching for an answer and I am sure I will never be able to find out because its like two bodies with the single soul and spirit very difficult to compare.Moreover, Saadi Dilli can’t be worse than Amchi Mumbai and vice versa is also true.