They say you don’t realize the value of something till that thing is taken away from you. You realize what a big of a deal it is only when you look at it as an audience. I couldn’t agree more.
Born and brought up here, as a school-going girl, Bandra was the perimeters of my movement. Having then lived here for fifteen years of my life, I was unaware of the hype that surrounded the 'Queen of the Suburbs', something I only recently learnt it was called. Only when I spent a year away from it did I realize what everyone had been fussing about. Now, two years after my ‘Back to Bandra’ movement, I wonder why I was chosen to live where I live, over the million others who would like to take up my home, if put for sale, only too willingly.
Eighteen and jobless (when I say ‘jobless’, I mean ‘activity-less’), I am a most boring Bandraite. I come to know of any event happening at Bandra-Kurla Complex only when I see flashy lights put up on the big grounds from my window. A few years ago I came to know THE Raj Kumar Hirani had moved in my society only when I saw Boman Irani drive in (my claim to fame being we shared a house-help with the Hiranis)! So I’m not the stereotypical ‘Sandra from Bandra’ one would expect a girl living here all her life to be.
Now let’s talk about all that hides behind the glitterati, or ‘Behind the Veneer’, as I say. Let’s talk about the thermocol-eating beggar-child on Carter Road or the English-speaking, burkha-clad other one in its by-lanes. Let’s talk about the sprawling slums behind the Sea Link and let’s talk about the illegitimately built buildings housing Government officials.
Bandra is far from the Utopia it is thought to be. And as a citizen of this suburb (as opposed to an audience to it), these are the things I know form the under-layer that is conveniently hidden and neglected. One can say they understand the true essence of this suburb only when Shah Rukh Khan’s ‘Mannat’ on one side of Bandstand and the vulnerable huts of fishermen and beggars on its other side attract their attention equally.
Something needs to be done to bridge this gap. Then again, one might say someone who has the potential to make this happen must be found. But you really need just one person to start a revolution (a moment to salute Anna Hazare for his recent victory). It could be the vexed wife of a celebrity living here whose house-helps didn’t come to work one day because their houses got burnt down by local goons as a political conspiracy or it could simply be someone who is ‘eighteen and jobless’!
I hope to witness a time when the picture one sees when they hold a magnifying glass towards Bandra is as beautiful as the one they would have seen had they held a rose-tinted glass towards it. ‘Bandar’, the word of which ‘Bandra’ is an adaptation, may mean ‘port’ in Persian. But we all know what it means in Hindi. And till the day comes when we accept what an epitome of paradox this suburb is and work towards diminishing these differences, that is exactly what we all are, Bandraite or not. We are fooling ourselves. We are Bandars.
