Maximum city - in fear

Nevil Shute's book 'On the Beach' remains to me a classic dystopia. The world has just had a nuclear war - and Australia is basically all that is left. Folks are trying to live their normal lives, but it is clear that things will never be the same. There is no way out, and no happy ending as petrol dries up and (if I remember correctly) the book closes with one of the main characters committing suicide after driving her car to the beach, watching the sun go down.

Mumbai 2009 is of course nowhere near this. But it is fascinating to see a partial shut-down due to the fear of Swine Flu.

Last night Sheba got a call from the school stating that the classes will be cancelled till Monday - even though Thursday was the first day of the latest unit tests.

The municipality has apparently stated that no-one is to go to movies or malls or schools. All are to be shut it seems.

Taking advantage of the unexpected holiday we went into town today. About 10% of people wore some kind of mask. Most were hankerchiefs. I am reminded of how we used to play 'cowboys and indians' as kids - the mask made by the hankerchief was key to our dressing up.

The question that went through my head was this: how does a person decide when to do what? When is it 'safe' to go out? To travel by local train (like we did as a family) tightly packed in with fellow commuters? When should we be wearing a hankerchief on our faces? when a surgical mask (about 1 in 30 was wearing one of them)? And how long will people keep wearing these? When the reports about deaths in the papers dissappear? How long does the public fear things like swine-flu?

What about bird-flu? I got late night SMS messages telling me not to eat chicken then. The prices of chicken crashed - as did eggs. No such luck now - we are in a global food price rise.

And SARS? Papers talked about how people were going to stop shaking hands - but would rather start shaking elbows in an attempt to reduce contagion. Have not seen an article on SARS for months.

Swine flu season it is though. There was a clear thinning in the streets today - but of course not everything shut down - most folks were still going about the gritty business of living. The sandwich wallahs were peddling their wares, the policemen were stopping motor-cyclists as is their wont, the watchmen were sitting bored at their posts, the sweepers and urchins continued to live on the streets.

Most of all, the papers continue to prominently high-light stories of loss. One of them had a shot of a totally 'moon-suited' family hugging each other in tears as the news of their loved one having died of H1N1 flu had just been broken to them.

Fear strikes pretty deep. Not deep enough to keep people fully off the streets - life had to continue in the city that never sleeps - in the city that runs after fame and the big buck over everything else. Mumbai will continue to pump its staccato heart-beat out come hell or high-water.

But scratch the surface and the shiny facade dissappears. Behind the 'bindaas' attitude there is a lot of brittleness. For every couple we see on the streets, locked in earnest conversation as the crowds swirl around them, we see so many families years later in utter relational meltdown as Bollywood dreams dry up in the harsh stream of day to day life together. Most families - if we really take a good look - are pretty miserable places - the outward razzmatazz of being India's money and cultural capital only shabbily hiding the haggard relationships that each family hides from their neighbours.

Swine flu has a least temporarily punctured the vastly self-satisfied bubble that most Mumbaikars blow around themselves. It has made people more aware of their own finiteness - of the effervescent nature of reality around them.

The fear that is evident in the city has its roots in deeper stuff. It speaks of the hubris and arrogance that lies in a city where the crushing poverty of so many is light-heartedly flipped aside for escapist fare and where newspapers think nothing about having their reporters cover restaurants serving meals costing more than the average salary of the watchman at their doors.

When something unexpected shows up - something which mocks our sense of control and self-assurance we have to sit up and listen.

Many moons ago, a regurgitated prophet showed up at a proud and ruthless city called Nineveh. His half-heartedly delivered warning of destruction was unexpectedly heeded by the cruel inhabitants of that great evil city - and God accepted their cries for forgiveness. Would that something similar would happen for our Maximum City of Mumbai.