Author: Nilanjana Sengupta
Publication: The Times of India
Date: July 16, 2006
URL: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1758465.cms
Introduction: "If I hear the word 'spirit'
anymore, I am going to puke," said one text message that made the rounds
on Thursday. And this TOI reader posted a message that said, "Oh god,
do something before we Mumbaiites become an endangered species... and only
our spirits remain."
When people who usually don't take the trains
have nothing meaningful to say about the blasts, they use an all-weather expression
- the Spirit of Mumbai. So what if Mumbai has been bombed once again? Long
live the spirit of Mumbai.
This undefined entity has been sharing equal
media space with numbers of dead and the injured since Tuesday's serial blasts.
One news channel even lined up playback and Indipop singers who sang one patriotic
song after another, hailing the indomitable spirit of the city.
It is easy to avoid nonsensical expression
if one understands Mumbai. Nearly 17 million people live here, 29,000 in every
square kilometer. It is hard for this city to look deserted.
To zoom in on scattered images of the city
as examples of a brave Mumbai fighting back only requires a camera and a mike,
and not much work.
For instance, hours after the blast on Tuesday,
a news anchor in a Delhi studio pointed to shots of Mumbai's commuters travelling
by Central Railways locals. It was portrayed as, yes, "the spirit of
Mumbai".
But the truth is, it is shocking that the
Central line plied even as the victims of the attack on the Western line lay
on the tracks and around. Simple security measures required the service to
be halted until all trains were screened. It was inefficiency. Not spirit.
A day after the blasts, offices with 100%
attendance were saluted for their fighting spirit. Prime-time discussions
on television went one step further and attributed the rise of the Sensex
to the spirit of Mumbai, and on Thursday evening, film and television stars
took to the streets and lit candles for those who succumbed to the blasts
and to salute Mumbai's ... (it's too tiring to repeat).
Needless to say, it is not the regular people
- families of the victims, and those who rushed towards the mangled compartments
to help - who are talking about this floating spirit.
They are busy coping with grief, praying for
safe recovery of the injured, and getting back to work with the resigned knowledge
that if anything has to happen, it will.
That is the sentiment that brought a human
resources officer back to work on Thursday after she suffered the trauma of
being in the same train where the first blast occured in Bandra.
"I was scared to take the train on Wednesday.
But on Thursday, I travelled knowing that anything can go wrong anywhere.
Staying at home will not save me," she says.
Santilal Mourya, a bhelpuriwala, who was injured
on March 12, 1993, experienced the terror of being unfairly targeted once
again. But he exorcised his fears and is back at his stall near the Stock
Exchange. "I have to survive. What else can I do," he asks.
Every city finds a way to regenerate after
a trauma. When people have no choice but to get back with their lives, the
earnest attempt to attach an expression to them is like overstating the obvious.
"I don't understand why there is so much
talk about spirit. It is almost as if we are not expected to move on with
our lives. I fear the authorities will soon start taking this 'spirit' for
granted and not do even the little that they are doing at the moment,"
says Akshay Desai, a college student.
The fact that commuters and others had rushed
to help victims is added as another ingredient in the exotic spirit of Mumbai.
But isn't it obvious that in any Indian city, on lookers will behave in this
manner?
Unlike in the West, social crises in India
have always had people rushing towards the scene of action to either help
or just gape.
In 1993, moments after the serial blasts in
Mumbai, B Raman, who was then a top official with the Research and Analysis
Wing (RAW), visited the sites. He remembers seeing boys playing cricket nearby
as though nothing had happened.
It was exactly the kind of image that would
be called the spirit of Mumbai today. But the truth is that a more responsible
country would have cordoned off the area fearing unexploded bombs. Time and
again, images of callousness are portrayed foolishly as spirit.
While Mumbai is without doubt a great city,
every single compliment thrown at it could so evidently be applied to other
parts of the country too. In 1998, Coimbatore was back on its feet a few hours
after a series of 12 blasts rocked the city killing 33 and injuring 153 people.
In 1992, when Sukhdev Singh Khalsa, the chief
of militant outfit Babbar Khalsa, was killed in an ambush by the Punjab police,
members of his outfit ran amok murdering several policemen and their families.
"The next day we thought the other policemen
will be demoralised and keep away from their duties out of fear. But each
one of them turned up," says Raman.
Though the term 'spirit of Mumbai' has helped
spawn many discussions and debates surrounding the crises, it has also irked
the common man. He does not identify with it.
"If I hear the word 'spirit' anymore,
I am going to puke," said one text message that made the rounds on Thursday.
And this TOI reader posted a message that said, "Oh god, do something
before we Mumbaiites become an endangered species... and only our spirits
remain."
Maybe it's time to use another expression
- one that will take the focus off the people and put it on politicians. If
anybody's spirit is really high now, it must be that of Johny Joseph. After
days of relentless media attention on the BMC commissioner, the city has finally
shifted its attention elsewhere.
