I love Mumbai, and **** Hafiz Saeed. Ye hai Bombay meri jaan.
This is several days late, but it's been growing on me.
You know how as Americans we all kind of have that very tribal sense of "fuck Osama Bin Ladin"? Well, let me add to that for you: Fuck Hafiz Saeed.
I have been mulling over posting something about the 2008 Mumbai attacks, but the Bhopal anniversary got in my way. And frankly that's more important. But still. Fuck anybody who wants to attack this city.
I'm not sure how much mindshare the '08 attacks still have in America, but let me remind you. Mumbai is an absolutely amazing city I think everyone should visit. And these assholes decided to kill people here.
West of my apartment building is an old mosque, the Hajji Ali Masjid. It is way out in a bay in the Arabian sea, connected to the island of Mumbai by a causeway that is submerged in high tide. It's absolutely astounding, and a perfect example of Mughal art and architecture. Nearby is what's called a "juice center", which we might call a "bar", with the understanding that they mostly served fresh fruit juice (which, holy shit, is amazing), though also the occasional drink under the table.
I was there earlier this evening and saw Omar. Omar is a guy I vaguely know, because I get brunch maybe every other weekend at the Taj down in Old Bombay. ("Bombay" was changed to "Mumbai" in the mid 1990's for political reasons, but most residents still call the city "Bombay", and literally everyone still calls the Old Town "Old Bombay"
. He is a sushi sous chef (if that makes sense? He preps sushi and comes out and schmoozes with customers.)
He had mentioned before he doesn't drink ("Omar" is the hint there; it's a Muslim name), so I was surprised to see him lifting up one of the Juice Center's alcoholic cocktails. I started to ask, and he looked at me and said "this is my first night off since the anniversary".
That was all that had to be said. Imagine a Manhattan waiter saying something like that on September 15th. Everybody kind of shut up. I have a virtue of staying silent, so I did, and he finished his cocktail and continued.
"I was supposed to be working that morning, but my father had passed away, so I arranged with Ram to cover my shift. When I got back from Maktupur (a town in Gujarat, the next state to the north -- Recursion) Ram was dead, my boss was dead, half of the people I knew were dead. I had been in Bombay ten weeks at that point."
There's a saying in New York: you are a New Yorker the first time that you say, "That's where my old deli used to be": the first time that what is gone is more real and present to you than what is here and now. Bombay kind of works the same way. Well, you are a Mumbaikar the first time the memory of this city is more real to you than the bullshit that has happened since then.
Ye hai Bombay meri jaan.
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