08 November,2025 07:18 AM IST | Mumbai | Lindsay Pereira
Representational pic/iStock
Earlier this October, I made the naïve decision of trying to get from Khar to Wadala at a little after 5 pm. It was a weekday, and I hadn't forgotten that rush hour existed, of course, but I assumed it wouldn't be more painful than usual. What I hadn't taken into account was the existence of some kind of fintech event being held at BKC. Apparently, it was meant to showcase how India is ready for business and why entrepreneurs from across the country and abroad should start diverting more of their money towards exciting new ventures in these parts.
Around me, brand new monuments in glass and steel rolled slowly past. Outside these monoliths, young men and women in suits and smart, formal wear stood in lines for buses. Some scrolled helplessly on phones while scouring the horizon for signs of cabs booked online. I sat in one of those rideshare cabs myself, hoping I wouldn't get stuck before resigning myself to the fact that this was inevitable.
An hour passed, with the cab covering a little over two kilometres.
What should have taken me 20 minutes eventually took a little over two hours. In all that time, the overwhelming emotion I grappled with was sadness. There was anger, too, but I dispensed with it quickly the way everyone in this city learns to do at a young age, when confronted with the futility of rage against an indifferent machine. The sadness stemmed from what was obvious to everyone stuck on that street alongside myself: a realisation that everything promised to residents here was a lie and always had been.
I am old enough to remember what BKC was meant to be, and it is a place I have written about before, usually when a bureaucrat puts forth another ridiculous idea or scheme that will supposedly change everything for those living or working here. The only thing that changes, however, are the faces of people. I sometimes think of those condemned to spend much of their youth waiting for a bus or cab, wasting the most valuable years of their life trying to navigate a system that has never pretended to care about them.
There is also sadness for the city itself, and what we have allowed it to become, just by putting up our hands and allowing real estate lobbies to ride roughshod over every green and unpaved corner.
It continues to astonish me that residents of this city now allow every aspect their lives to be dictated by what the roads are like. What used to be a problem unique to the West has now entrenched itself here, and we have simply accepted it as the status quo.
When friends choose to meet each other, it now involves planning and the knowledge that large parts of their day will be lost to traffic jams. This knowledge also colours how we engage with the suburbs, why we don't go out unless it's to a restaurant in the neighbourhood, why cultural activities turn into chores, and casual meetings turn into favours. We accept this as the norm because we allowed it to happen.
This is also why there is no outrage when commuters, including 500 schoolchildren, are stuck for over five hours on Ghodbunder Road because of repair work and the poor condition of our highways.
It's also why no contractors are identified, no bureaucrats punished, and no ministers forced to resign despite the fact that they openly and consistently display an inability to do the jobs they are paid by taxpayers to do. They have long accepted that they can get away with anything, and we have done nothing to change that point of view. The realisation should sadden us all.
A few days after my BKC ordeal, I found myself on that winding street again, this time at around noon. There were fewer cars, so my cab kept moving, and all around were posters and banners welcoming the Prime Minister of the UK for another summit of some kind. I pictured him moving from the airport to the venue, oblivious to what life in this corner of the city was really like for those who couldn't escape it.
I wondered if one of his aides would reveal the truth to him later, that everything about Bombay was now a sham. I wanted him to know that behind the banners and bright lights lay a city of cars and highways where nothing stirred, not even signs of hope.
When he isn't ranting about all things Mumbai, Lindsay Pereira can be almost sweet. He tweets @lindsaypereira
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