Reliance Mumbai

In the year that I have been away, the biggest change in Mumbai appears to be that the city has sold itself to Reliance. The Reliance name is everywhere, most of all on surging power bills. No one seems to remark very much on the fact that the city may very well rename itself Ambani Town. And where the name is not so apparent, you suspect that the Ambanis are backers at the very least. The day cannot be far when, much like the fad with affixing sponsor’s names before soaps, the country itself will be Reliance India (though the Reliance World outlets may well suggest that the Ambanis ambitions are not that limited).

For the rest, there are the ubiquitous malls (I didn’t quite recognize Vikhroli), the sea link, the Reliance Metro, the hotels like the Grand Hyatt and the like. Our chauffeur and my old maid live in wadis that are earmarked for development (they hope to get a flat or at least money out of it). And though the landscape has changed, most of the architecture is dispiriting, none ambitious in scope. The skywalk at Bandra East is an incongruous yellow and green and as far as I can see does not seem to function as anything else (e.g. as a space for local art). The city itself seem old and musty, Colaba distinctly so. The bookshops are the same soulless Crossword chain everywhere - I very much missed Lotus. Bandra, which could have easily been like Sydney’s Paddington, is instead a mess of large signage and stores. In fact much of Mumbai is an endless vista of hoardings. The suburbs are as endlessly dreary as anything Sydney has to offer, only unimaginably crowded. Only its people make Mumbai, otherwise there is little to suggest that this is one of the great metropolises of the world.

The heavy rains had at least washed the city clean and the green tenaciously clung to roads, buildings, and any available patch. Nature itself is a guerilla gardener here – for all the concrete, for all the people crammed into its space, were it to be vacated Mumbai seems a city that would be easily swallowed by Nature leaving no trace of what once was.