A few weeks ago, I attended a workshop on Participatory Communication and Action, where different people across India came together to learn how communication plays a key role in our work with people and how those very methods we use reflects our belief system.
At this very workshop, I met a person who described himself as a middle class urban guy, brought up with traditional middle class values, something I was very familiar with. He told me about how his travels have taken him to places he couldn't imagine and to cultures he was so new to. And then he asked me a question which got me thinking... Does Bombay have any shock value me?
Bombay to me is home... A potpourri of everything one can possibly imagine... A place that one can hate for its sheer mobs and love for its bold variety, both at the same time.
So if diversity and differences in everything be it cultures, languages, gender definitions, food... is all you've ever grown up with, can a place still hold some shock value for you?
What do you think?
3 comments:
Well let me see..things that shock me and will continue to shock me in Bombay
1.Getting on a train during rush hour. It shocks me to see people would rather die or hang on from the door by another’s pants than let that train go by .It also shocks me that the great Indian railway after donkeys of years and countless of deaths still allow it.
2.The price of a flat always blows the roof off my head
3.Marriage ceremonies OMG ..Almost every society has elaborate weeklong celebrations and day and after day of special days such as Roas or the Mayara or the Chauthi
When you spent most of your conscious life dodging spit puddles (and their creators) and still have to do so for the rest of your life while living there isn’t that shocking.
Hey to some people will find shocking that you still say Bombay instead of Mumbai and will waste no time in correcting you!
NOPE MUMBAI NEVER CEASES TO AMAZE ME.INDIA NEVER CEASES TO AMAZE ACTUALLY!
spit dodger....
these things you mentioned.... they have become part of Bombay's (and I do say Bombay very conscientiously) identity.. Yes it is a pain to dodge spit and spit puddles, it is a pain to dodge faeces, it is deplorable to watch natural resources being destroyed in a city that is starving them...
and yes... i do wish that none of that happened...
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