Mumbai Memoir

Rajanish Kakade/AP An Indian scholar and journalist reflects on the open and secular and trusting society his parents knew, and hopes that, in spite of the attacks, all Indians will too.

There’s a major square in South Mumbai—a busy intersection, really—that mirrors the open, secular and trusting society that India has always been.

In and around the square, there are small haberdasheries run by Hindus and groceries owned by Muslims; there’s a Parsi fire temple; there’s a Catholic church; there’s a theater that exhibits brash foreign films, and another one that features Bollywood fare. There are tiny eateries that offer everything from samosas to sandwiches. There are cobblers parked on pavements; there are tailors perched on the patios of dilapidated but crowded tenements, and there are bookstores and magazine kiosks.

This square, like many others across this metropolis of nearly 20 million people, is a microcosm of Mumbai, India’s commercial capital and its most cosmopolitan and ethnically diverse city. I like to think that this square is Mumbai’s crossroads; I even like to think that this square is India’s crossroads.

The age of confrontation is here now, perhaps irreversibly so. I fear that there may even be communal violence, undertaken in the dubious cause of vengeance. Who knows?

I like to think these things not only because the square—called “chowk” in the Marathi language that’s widely spoken in Mumbai—is named after my late mother, Professor Charusheela Gupte. She was a Marathi and Sanskrit scholar, a writer, and a social activist who championed the cause of literacy for dispossessed children and of economic opportunities for women, particularly in slums and in the rural regions surrounding Mumbai. During her long lifetime, she witnessed the transformation of India from a colony of the British Raj to an independent democracy. She spoke up for people who had no voice in public discourse, nor the means to speak truth to power, not even the opportunity to advance beyond subsistence. She spoke from her heart because she herself had risen from poverty to reach the highest levels of intellectual and social attainment.

My mother is long gone now, but I like to think that the square named in her honor by a grateful city still resonates with the spirit that animated her life—the spirit of openness, secular and trust that resides in the hearts of most Indians, regardless of their faith or ethnicity.