The 7 habits of highly effective Mumbaiyyas

(Part 2 in a series of posts) on Mumbai.
I have noticed over the past few months in my adopted home that there are roughly seven distinct stages by which one morphs into a Mumbaiyya/ Mumbaikar. (Note that by Mumbaiyyas, I mean anyone who has lived long enough in Mumbai to consider himself/herself a "local", and not only the authentic Marathi Mumbaiyyas. Anyways, the rate at which people migrate into Mumbai, it's very hard to say what a "true" Mumbaiyya is).

So, over to the seven habits of highly effective Mumbaiyyas

1. Calling people Bhai: Which of course means elder brother. Which is sometimes disconcerting if you are a 24 year old male and at the receiving end of such an acclamation. (I mean, who gave me the mandate of being all of Mumbai's elder brother I say). Of course, coming from Bangalore, I am used to calling random strangers Guru, which of course means teacher, and is quite a ludicrous greeting in itself. The jury may be out on which one is more asinine, but I sure took some time referring to every stranger as my elder brother.

2. Actually understanding how local trains work: Here I don't mean being able to get in to a local train and getting out. But actually understanding 'insider info' like
a) knowing which side of the train the platform will be,
b) being able to decode cryptic messages like "B S 9 02", which is the only signposting you will see in a local train station, and actually knowing what it means*.
c) knowing useful hints like "don't take a Virar fast if you don't actually have to travel" that far, and so on.
d) understanding statements like 'I took the 8:11 fast instead of the 8:04 slow' and actually believing the above statement makes for meaningful confabulation.

In addition, you must also be able to gleefully wear that knowing, smug, expression when you see an obviously non-local person trying to unsuccessfully negotiate his/her way through the local trains' countless unwritten laws and undertake a journey.

It appears that worryingly, I am already at this stage.

3. Develop an overpowering obsession of roads and traffic. See this for more info on this. Fotbw has gone on to provide her insider, sociological-psychological-anthropological-philosophical-cultural take on Mumbai's all encompassing neurosis with roads and traffic. Apparently, showing off an intricate knowledge of roads, traffic tips, shortcuts etc is the native way of showing "I am more of a localite than you are". Which is why traffic is an oft repeated theme in conversations. After 9 odd months here, this theory is starting to make a lot of sense.

4. A sincere belief that it takes 25 minutes to get from anywhere to anywhere else in Bombay. This one had me flummoxed for a while. "From Bandra to Nariman point takes 25 minutes, and once the Worli Bandra sea link is ready, it should take only 15 minutes". Replace Bandra & Nariman Point by any 2 random localities and the numbers 25 and 15 never change. You could as well say 42 and the total randomness of the choice of those numbers would remain.

For a brief while, I remarked to myself how it was such a happy coincidence that all places in Mumbai seemed to be 25 minutes away (and I attributed the fact that it was actually taking more like 2+ hours to bad directions & un-knowledgeable taxi drivers). Of course, it didn't take long to realize that on a good day here, you could jog backwards blindfolded and tied-up and still beat the traffic comfortably.

A corollary to this inexorable belief in the efficiency of the traffic is also a (mistaken) belief that every other city has "far worse traffic" than Mumbai. This includes places like Pune, Jhumritilaiya etc
My good friend the cuplord, has been in Mumbai for exactly the same duration as me and he already is past this stage. He has also in true Mumbai spirit, has hit upon the magic number of 25.

5. That unique Mumbai whistle. I am actually very fascinated by this one. I am sure that if properly studied, this can disprove all laws of acoustics. It involves an elaborate twisting of the lower lip with the thumb and index finger and emitting a high pitched whistle. But what I really never have understood how it works, but somehow the person who the whistler is attempting to reach out always responds and nobody else. It is truly a marvel of nature that in the vast crowds you are usually subjected to in Mumbai, one expert whistle, and you can draw out the exact person you are calling. I'd really like to skip levels 3 and 4 and get to 5 directly.

6. Developing a very warped sense of the phrase 'good weather'. Also extrapolate to include the word 'cold'. For the uninitiated, let me explain how Mumbai weather is. The maximum temperature is 33 degrees 365 days a year. It starts raining at 9 AM on June 1st and stops in early September. The minimum temperature is 24 degrees except in 'peak winter' when it drops drastically to 22 degrees, or in especially cruel 'cold waves', maybe 21. It is this kind of weather that permits Lonavla to be considered as a hill station.

Now granted that all cities can't be well endowed weather wise, but after what I am used to, it's very hard not to be tickled to death when the sweaters and monkey caps come out here in January. Especially when the sweaters come accompanied by sentences like "Oh, its such a pleasant day. What fine weather". Sigh. These are the times I miss home most.

7. This is the terminal stage of acute "Mumbaiitis". By this time, you start believing Mumbai is the universe. Juxtapose this with the geocentric theory, where they conceded that there were other places in the universe, but the earth was the center of it all. Mumbaiitis on the other hand, seems to ignore the existence of all places outside Mumbai.

Some common associated symptoms are a sincere belief that Mumbai is the perfect city and the paragon of urban settlements. This includes, but is not restricted to, a belief that "Mumbai has great infrastructure", "Mumbai is the safest city", "Mumbai has clean beaches", "Mumbai is not as polluted as other metros in India", "the indomitable spirit of Mumbaikars", "Mumbai has the best lifestyle" (whatever that means) and so on. Asinine as the above statements may sound, these are commonly held beliefs in 'born and brought up in Mumbai' circles.

While it is common to be fond of the city you spent most of your life in, the parochial obsession the city holds with itself is hard to understand for outsiders. By the time you reach this stage, you usually have either a road or locality in Mumbai named after you. To this set, Navi Mumbai is the "east coast of India", and the universe ends abruptly a little beyond Panvel.

Post script: I don't hate Mumbai to the extent that my 1st two posts suggest. In fact, I don't hate Mumbai at all. But I think of Mumbai more like a dust allergy. It is really despicable the first time, and once you get used to it, you hardly notice it, and it only bothers you once in a way. Also, if you look up Mumbai in a thesaurus, you'd probably find 'Bangalore' listed as it's antonym. Which is why getting adjusted to this place (if you're used to Bangalore) is so hard.

* For the absolutely uninitiated, that means 'Slow train to Bandra with 9 coaches in 2 minutes'.