Mumbai, or Bombay for old timers, is India’s version of the Big Apple, heir to a still visible Victorian legacy juxtaposed with eternal Indian ingenuity. One can almost touch the pulsating energy in its air, thick with ambition and enterprise. This is a city that never sleeps, with Bollywood for a glittering dream machine. The city is also synonymous with big Indian business, having played home to the legendary Jamshedji Tata, whose vision bequeathed to India its very first modern industrial empire.
I’ve often wondered what makes Mumbai tick, the city’s secret sauce, so to speak, that sustains all of its tremendous bustle and activity. The city bucks the stereotype of the average Indian metropolis, and is perhaps, in many ways, a closer cousin to Tokyo. Just as Japan is culturally the most Westernized of all Asian countries, Mumbai is the most Westernized among India’s cities. There’s a clockwork precision to Tokyo that Mumbai tries to emulate, and fairly successfully at that. For Mumbai, far more than the rest of India’s cities, thrives on a remarkable orderliness.
Take queuing for instance, something one might take for granted in the West. Most of India would prefer a non-linear approach to get ahead with life in general. The Indian mindset is smartly endowed to figure out the shortest path through any and every situation. Mumbai, by contrast, queues up for just about everything.
The lifeline of Mumbai is its suburban rail network, which like Tokyo’s, is one of the world’s busiest, transporting millions of people day in and out with relentless efficiency. Mumbai’s rail network, with all of the feeder systems that support it, does a stellar job of keeping the whole city on the move with a palpable rhythm.
The exception to orderly queueing, curiously, is for the actual suburban train ride itself, which can demand an act of genuine acrobatic dexterity to board and exit. Rest assured, however, that this is for good reason, and there is a still a certain knack to the process, which requires positioning oneself strategically to ride with the crowd’s momentum. Embarking and exit is then simply a matter of being swept in and swept out with the tidal surge of humanity. For coaches with crowds packed like sardines, this system works far superior to queueing.
Once on board though, you will find that that order settles in rapidly. If you rode in the same coach on the same local train every day, you might notice the same straphangers occupying the same spots, as if theirs by right. Not surprisingly, a lively community bond ensues, forged by this daily commute. Such bonds have lasted, in many cases, through entire working lives of 30 years and more.
Once the frenzy of the morning rush hour subsides, it’s prime time for Mumbai’s dabbawallas to swing into action. The dabbawallas operate a meal delivery system that can justifiably be called Mumbai’s pride. Their noble enterprise delivers hot lunches from homes to offices every working day. Hundreds of thousands of dabbas, or lunchboxes, make their way from people’s homes to their offices, picked up late morning to be returned early afternoon. Come rain or shine, hosts of clanging dabbas can be seen on bicycles or transferring on to the local trains, ferried by the intrepid fleet of dabbawallas.
Notwithstanding the humongous scale of operation, instances of mismatches or missed deliveries are exceedingly rare. The reliability of the century old system of the dabbawallas continues to confound modern day pundits of logistics. Many an aspiring Silicon Valley food delivery startup can take a leaf out of the dabbawallas’ book, and they have been the subject of several business school case studies.
Many of the dabbawallas are barely literate, and the stipend for their tireless efforts is hardly enough to make ends meet. Yet, they bring to their job a proud and passionate work ethic, and an almost religious sense of mission. A scriptural simile is appropriate here. Just as in a herd of a thousand cows, a calf unerringly finds its own mother, Mumbai’s wonderful dabbawallas ensure that each dabba finds its exact owner to bring them nourishment from home.
Speaking of cows, this is where Mumbai gets truly interesting. Humans and cows have coexisted happily for millennia in a rural and pastoral setting, with cows free to roam and graze. City cows in India though are a stressed and challenged lot, uprooted as they are from their carefree natural environs and having to contend with the dangers of modern traffic. Bombay’s cows are however champions of the game, with street smarts to surpass even their human cousins. In this respect, the cows of Ghatkopar, a Central Bombay suburb, must take honors for a most impressive spectacle of bovine order.
The rail tracks in Bombay, running through its suburbs, are for the most part unfenced, and several people tempt fate daily as they cross over from one side to another. The rail stations on the network, of course, have pedestrian overbridges and subways to cross over safely. For example, if you needed to cross over from one side of Ghatkopar to the other as a pedestrian, the rail station at Ghatkopar is one place to do so, and thousands of pedestrians use its overbridge daily.
As you enter the station to cross over the bridge, though, be not surprised if you find yourself in the company of cows coming and going freely in either direction. These are Bombay cows, and like the human residents of the city, busy and hard pressed for time, and difficult to schedule appointments with even if you tried. Yet, unlike some of their foolhardy human brethren, no cow crosses the actual rail track, always using the pedestrian bridge instead. Cows and bulls routinely make their entrance, to climb up the ramp, saunter across and come down on the other side with nonchalant ease and familiarity. There’s no one to point or direct, but every cow conducts itself perfectly as if following the signs.
Swishing their tails about to keep away the ever pesky flies, the cows of Ghatkopar have crossed in this manner for generations. It is a curious sight indeed, especially in the rains, to watch a seamless crowd of humans and cows, coats and tails, horns and umbrellas, marching in jolly stride. Bipeds and quadrupeds might even exchange notes as they go about their daily commute. Rumor has it that savvy stockbrokers in the crowd interpret bull language for trading tips on the bourses.
Monsoon rains can sometimes make it challenging, especially for inexperienced calves, to find their footing on the wet and slippery ramps. Some of them choose to therefore make a speedy and carefree descent, where even the burliest of human commuters must make way with alacrity. A little monsoon fun is always in order.
All told though. Mumbai’s cows are probably the smartest of city cows anywhere, with a discipline that would do humans proud. Bovines and humans share a most easy and familiar bonhomie as they go about their respective daily business. This forever funny spectacle has to place Mumbai in a league all its own.