BOMBAY - MY VALENTINE

It’s Valentine Day today.  An E-mail has just popped in my Inbox. I get goose-pimples as I read the title of attachment with the mail. It reads, ‘Bombay 100 years ago’. As I open the attachment, I fall in love all over again.

I have found my Valentine- my Bombay.

Memories of 69 years that I have spent here since birth are well preserved though the tone has turned sepia. But pictures are clear. World Luxury Council (India) has come up with a series of canvasses that display icons of Bombay landmarks as they were 100 years back. A friend thought it appropriate to forward these to me. It is a priceless ‘forward’ that will rest on ‘desktop’ till I last. As I browse through the attachment the images become sharper. I am reliving my childhood as view these pictures. I cannot help admire what appears on the screen. Frame after frame tickle my sense of pride and glory about Bombay. Having grown with the city I am able to identify and relate to most of these landmarks dotting the Beautiful Bombay.

Resplendent in architectural splendor, blending English and French styles with native and Islamic architecture the city symbolizes a vision that transcends borders across the world. Little wonder it is also a demographers’ delight. It is a city with a Lion’s heart that accommodates everyone seeking a toe-hold. All are welcome in this city, irrespective of their color, caste, creed community or place of origin. In its womb are nestled diverse shades of humanity. This is the city that defines ‘cosmopolitanism’ in true sense. Its cultural diversity sets standards a few cities in the world can match.

Bombay breathes ‘opportunities’. Take it and it takes you where you wish to reach, no matter how high.  From micro-mini to multinational, all kinds of enterprise thrive in Bombay. Yet, it is not a city where only money matters. It is a city that lives life in all its facets. Here, art keeps company with architecture, commerce is complimented by charity, intellect competes with erudition and culture defines class.

Bombay of the yore had good fortune to be nursed and nurtured by men (and women) with broad minds and larger than life persona. Always eager to give more to the city than what they got from it, these magnificent women and men gave Bombay its character.

Romancing Bombay has been an old habit of incorrigible flirt in me.  As if sharing my feeling, even the Arabian Sea keeps caressing the shores of the city.

Love you Bombay (now Mumbai) at all times.