THE Mumbai vs Delhi debate is done. Or so we thought. It is back, three bananas short of a fruit basket, a cocoa puff of never-ending nothingness with Fabulous Lives vs Bollywood Wives. Surely, the lens has shifted. And if anyone asks. Yes, Shalini Passi wins. The cities are merely bread on the sideboard. It is Passi vs Plebs all the way.
But the cities, Mumbai and Delhi, do crop up with their multicultural karmas to stir the debate only this time, with Reality TV walking into the drama in Louboutin-soled heels. One thing is certain, there is no place for indifference in their energy-wrapped rivalry. It nudges you to go into the dialectic of what frames them. If Delhi is ishq mohabbat pyaar with fixers, brokers, middlemen, meddle-ness, sprawling gardens, tombs, politics, chaat, bureaucracy, power and chana bhatura thrown into the mix; Mumbai is a fast, dense mass of walkers, dreamers, financers, buildings, slums, vada pav, cutting chai, seaside promenades, queues, stars, industrialists and idlers negotiating with limited space zara hatke zara bachke for it is Bombay meri jaan. If you stop moving, you might cease to exist.
Mumbai, as we know it, was born to Urbs Prima in Indis, the Latin phrase meaning the first city of India. Delhi was born to power for it was said that ‘whoever ruled Delhi, ruled India’.
Slowly, the cities took shape. The seven, separate, amorphous islands, named Heptanesia by Ptolemy in CE 150, were joined by a series of land reclamation projects to shape Bombay. On the other hand, Delhi became a site for seven cities when its rulers, belonging to different dynasties, built their capitals in different parts of the city rather than rule from an existing one. The romance of seven reigned over the geography, Mumbai went linear and Delhi circular. This has shaped how people in the two cities view space. (See image 1 and 2).
Denne historien er fra December 11, 2024-utgaven av Outlook.
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Denne historien er fra December 11, 2024-utgaven av Outlook.
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Love in Bombay
In a city continuously grappling for space, lovers have found their own pockets of expression jostling against one another
Unscripted Moments
Street photography is all about finding the extraordinary in the ordinary, one candid moment at a time
Sambhal Files
An engineered silence weighs heavily on the stillness of the empty streets in the centuries-old town of Sambhal, Uttar Pradesh, where clashes with police over yet another 'mandir-masjid' dispute led to the deaths of local Muslim men
A State of Difference
What is about the Adivasis of Jharkhand that prevents the saffron lotus from blooming or even taking root, unlike in the Adivasi-majority seats of Chhattisgarh and Odisha where the BJP did exceedingly well in the past few years?
BJP Trumps Thackeray's Sena
The tables have turned on the original harbingers of communal politics in Maharashtra
Verses of Witnessing
The most imaginative chronicles of Mumbai's \"spirit\" come to us from the city's poets
Walking Through the Homes
Chandni Chowk is being usurped by a redevelopment model that will wipe out its unique blend of history, culture and commerce
Cost of Living, Price of Loving
In Mumbai's Kamathipura, the business of sex fails to keep up with the profits of real estate
A Taste of History
A delectable food walk in Old Delhi uncovers layers of history
Dramatis Personae
Comparing an actor's struggles in Delhi and Mumbai maps out the differing cultures of two disparate cities
