I have been born and brought up in Bombay (now, Mumbai) – a city that is full of contradictions. For the longest time, I used to be quite passionate about living in Bombay and couldn’t imagine living in any other town. I guess, somewhere down the line, that changed. Here are some interesting facts to ponder over :<\/p>\n
Citizens of Bombay contribute over 40% of the entire nation’s taxes! Yet, enjoys some of the worst public infrastructure you will ever experience in India.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Bombay is the most populous city in the Indian subcontinent, with a population of over 18 million occupying merely 440 square kilometers.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Bombay is the largest port in western India, handling over half of India’s passenger traffic. It also houses Asia’s largest slum (aka shanty aka informal settlement).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Bombay is the industrial hub of everything from textiles to petrochemicals, and responsible for half of India’s foreign trade. It is also a magnet for India’s rural poor.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Sometimes, I cannot help but think that the most difficult part of living in Bombay is returning from a vacation, especially an International one. The contrast is so glaring, it’s not funny. As much as our politicians would like to refer to it as the Shanghai or Singapore or New York of India, I know that is simply not possible for Bombay to reach that level of development. Ever.<\/p>\n
Take any standard of good living, and you will find Bombay lacking abysmally : The roads are in a pathetic condition. The public transport system is bursting at its seams. The bulk of its populations lacks basic sanitation facilities. The airports and railway stations are overcrowded and a nightmare to navigate. Water shortages and frequent power cuts are fast becoming the norm. The pollutants in the air are responsible for over a quarter of its population being asthmatic. <\/p>\n
The population is simply too huge to manage… the politicians are too corrupt… the people (mostly migrants) too uneducated in the most basic of civic senses… And, every day that passes, those who know better, grow more and more…apathetic. It’s a wonder that people still flock to the city in hundreds, believing that they’re coming to the city of dreams!<\/p>\n
If family considerations didn’t come in the way, I would’ve left Bombay a long time ago. I still nurture dreams of settling down in a small town, some time in the not-so-distant future. In the meanwhile, as long as I can insulate myself sufficiently from the ills of living in Bombay, life goes on. Right?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I have been born and brought up in Bombay (now, Mumbai) – a city that is full of contradictions. For the longest time, I used to be quite passionate about living in Bombay and couldn’t imagine living in any other town. I guess, somewhere down the line, that changed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[6],"class_list":["post-245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-india"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/greymatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/greymatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/greymatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/greymatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/greymatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/greymatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/greymatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/greymatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/greymatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}