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V. Gangadhar

An address in the suburbs will not cut ice with the diehard South Mumbai folk. A case of blinkered nostalgia.

A former friend and colleague at Reader's Digest, Rati — a gentle, gracious Parsi lady — had no problems visiting places in other parts of the country. But Rati, a resident of Grant Road in the heart of Mumbai city, was extremely nervous when invited to a colleague's wedding in suburban Borivili. She worried about the suburban train service, its sanitary conditions and whether the visit would affect her delicate health. She was not a suburban person and seldom visited Mumbai's suburbs, her life being confined to Greater Mumbai.

Yes, there are thousands like her for whom Mumbai is only Marine Line, Peddar Road, Colaba, Breach Candy, Warden Road and, perhaps, a bit of Worli. These are the diehard city slickers for whom the suburbs hold no attraction. So, it was nice to work at an office in Nariman Point, own or rent a flat at Marine Drive, shop along Colaba Causeway, entertain friends at the Taj or Oberoi, enjoy the cultural life offered by the National Centre of Performing Arts (NCPA), and watch English movies at the Sterling, Regal or New Excelsior theatres. The suburbs, well, were the suburbs.

Dadar was desi, Parel was strictly labour class and areas like Dombivili, Kandivili, or Chinchpokli simply did not exist. One read about them occasionally in newspaper reports. The editor of a well-known English daily once commented that life in Mumbai did not exist beyond Peddar Road. "I understand, beyond that, the people speak only Marathi," she lamented.

But economic factors are changing this attitude. Corporate houses, big ad agencies and even newspaper offices have discovered that real estate prices are cheaper in the suburbs and that they could cut costs by shifting, say, to Parel. Believe it not, Parel is now a bustling suburb, with sparkling towers, offices designed by well-known architects, mushrooming restaurants and hep nightlife.

However, the nostalgia for South Mumbai is hard to ignore. Some ad agencies, despite shifting to Parel, announced they were functioning from Upper, Lower, downtown or uptown Worli.

What's in a name, one may ask. For corporate houses, location at Chinchpokli or Thakurli was a comedown, so why not twist the city's topography a bit and call the area upmarket Worli or some other fashionable area? The suburbanites were not amused, particularly residents of Parel.

Recently, volunteers of the Nationalist Congress party (NCP) marched into the offices of the upcoming ITC Grand Central Hotel, a 30-storeyed building built at a cost of Rs 220 crore in the mill area of Parel. The NCP workers shouted slogans and demanded a meeting with the hotel executives.

Their demand? More jobs for local people. But more important, they were protesting against ITC's announcement that the hotel was located not at Parel, but at Upper Worli!

The NCP volunteers had discovered the faux pas on the hotel's Web site. The management insisted it had no problems with Parel and was using that name in all its promotional literature. They could not explain how the change of name occurred at the Web site and took up the issue with the top brass of the hotel in Delhi. Their wounded feelings assuaged, the Parel demonstrators left, promising to return if the mistake was not corrected. One of them pointed out that Parel was no longer the drab suburb of the past and boasted every single modern facility and even luxury.

Why should anyone hanker after Worli, he wondered.

The answer is clear. Habits change slowly. The diehard South Mumbai folk found it hard to realise that the city suburbs were changing dramatically and could match every facility, that too at lower prices. But then, a name was still a name.

Picture by Shashi Ashiwal

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