Jaipur literature festival: Mumbai as muse

Sitting in the chilly freeze of sleepy, early morning Jaipur, the not-a breath-to-spare chaos of Mumbai seems a lifetime away.

But it is Mumbai we are talking about, so far away, so clear. Amidst all the schmoozing, the Lit Fest has earned criticism from some quarters, apparently brouhaha about racism, about favouring writers writing in English, directed at Fest organiser William Dalrymple. But in all that overt nit-picking, there is also an inward glance — navel-gazing at the idea of India: the country, the ‘brand’, its cities. And so — Mumbai as muse.

The city is inspiration to many, and on Day Four, authors Sonia Faleiro and Gyan Prakash are in discussion with Madhu Trehan on their narratives about Mumbai (which they sometimes call ‘Bombay’). Both writers have used the city as backdrop. Both are chroniclers by profession —Sonia is a journalist, Gyan a historian. Sonia’s book, in her words, is about a ‘19-year-old bar dancer’ and her relationship with her. “Dance bars stand for what I both adore and despise in the city,” she says. She explains that she adores the independence they can give a dancer over her body and future, but despises that the actual power lies in the hands of owners, by extension pimps, gangsters who control Mumbai.

Gyan’s book tackles Mumbai in the ‘50s, chronicling stories that the less aggressive media of the time ‘politely ignored’. He mentions the city’s first tabloid, and tells of how being from Bihar, growing up he wasn’t native to Mumbai. It was a city that existed notionally: through Dev Anand hairstyles, Mario Miranda cartoons, the tabloid Blitz.

Certainly, Mumbai can be captured the way he says, (quoting a favourite  author of his): ‘a soft city of dreams and illusions is as real as a hard city of demographics.’ Gyan, in his writing, says he wants to dig under images for the ‘concealed stories’.

He mentions, while describing his work, Mumbai’s growing sense of crisis — e.g. the textile strike which is ‘still the world’s longest running strike since technically it’s not been called off’…and tells of his fascination for a Hindi comic book superhero who steps in when agents of state fail, through ineffectuality or corruption. Underlining the need for a superhero which comic books dramatise, when the liberal democratic state proves ineffectual.

Madhu Trehan expresses how Mumbai is a city of extremes: of extreme poverty, extreme glamour too.

The Q & A session has a query: “Most of us, in India, abroad, are enticed by the concept of Mumbai. Will there be other cities that can be captured like this as well?” Sonia replies to the effect that all cities are fascinating and reporters in those cities can certainly capture them.

Trehan, here, comes up with an opinion that causes a stir, “Mumbai has a magic of extremes. Look at Mukesh Ambani’s house. We have that monstrosity built for one billion dollars surrounded by slums. That could not exist in Delhi, other cities, that only happens in Mumbai — it’s a city of extremes, extremities. Its excess is a big draw for writers. Nothing succeeds like excess.”