Huma Qureshi on things that drew her to love the city and things about it that sadden her
Upala KBR (DNA; August 8, 2016)


First impressions
I’d been visiting Mumbai since 2007-2008 as I have lots of friends here, but only moved here by 2009-end for work, as I wanted to pursue acting as a career and it’s been my home ever since. My first impression of Mumbai wasn’t very nice. I thought it was a dirty, smelly and overcrowded city. I was quite disappointed with the conditions of the roads and the flyovers because in my head, I always thought of Mumbai as a beautiful city. People had hyped it up a lot so when I first came I was like, ‘Yeh Mumbai hai?’

A home of my own
The first house that I stayed in after coming to Mumbai was a friend’s home in Vile Parle, where I stayed for a few days where she and her mom took good care of me, but the first home where I stayed at, was at this lovely paying-guest accommodation for women on Juhu-Versova Link Road, where I stayed for a few months. I hated it as I had never stayed alone. I wanted a home of my own. I was staying alone and travelling unchaperoned. I was left to my own devices.

What Mumbai gave me
Mumbai has given me my life and career but it has also made me the person I am. I can run my own household, staff and career. That’s something very important and valuable and it happened to me while in Mumbai — this whole growing up process. Everything was intertwined — moving to Mumbai, becoming independent for the first time, buying a house and car, paying my bills. Even today, all this can be quite intimidating and tiresome, especially when I have to sit down at the month-end and sort out my accounts.

What I love about Mumbai
I fell in love with the people of Mumbai. The people in general are so cool and open to people from all over the country. There’s such an infectious vibe about the city. If you have the right attitude and want to do something in life, opportunities come up and doors do open out to them. This is especially true for migrants and that is what makes Mumbai the city it is. It a melting pot of not just local people but people from all over and gives Mumbai the edge over any other city in the country. Today I think this city has so much to offer. It has become home, given me work, and I have made many friends here. I love many things about the city — Mumbai’s amazing, positive energy, the fact that it’s so welcoming, to everyone, it’s the land of opportunities and of course, the nightlife!

Lovin’ the rains
Yahan ka mausam Dilli se bahut laga hota hai, yahan pe rukei na… Itni tez baarish hoti hai! When I came to Mumbai I didn’t have a car, so I travelled by local transport and suddenly I would be trapped in the rain. That’s how I realised the importance of carrying umbrellas, raincoats and covers for mobile phones. I have gone through the entire Mumbai monsoons. In Delhi, the rains stop after a point and you manage, but here you have to carry the full monsoon gear when you are stepping out.

But despite all that, I love the rains. It is beautiful. I think it washes away all the dirt and pollution and everything we have done wrong to it and makes everything shining and bright. I love the Mumbai monsoons and now where I live in Bandra the view is very beautiful. After it rains, it looks magical outside.

Mumbai vs Delhi
But I face a major difficulty there now every time I go back: everything seems to be changing in Delhi and very rapidly so now if I take a wrong turn, I may get lost. Also, I do find Delhi little more unsafe for women, my people are more concerned about when am I coming back? Who am I going back with, etc. Mumbai is so cool that way. I discovered independent living and traveling alone with nobody bothering you. I love going for a spin in Bandra in the evening, there are amazing coffee corners and healthy snack places which one keeps exploring while in Andheri there’s Indigo Deli, which is one of my regular meeting places.

The one bad thing I didn’t like about Mumbai and it was like a little bit of a rude shock to me… When I first came here I found that there’s a lot of bhed-bhav as far as housing societies were concerned, which I found quite shocking as that never happens in Delhi. Like a lot of societies told me they wouldn’t give me a flat because I was a Muslim or Muslim societies don’t give flats to people with Hindu surnames. That never happens in Delhi at all.

Dilli memories
Both Delhi and Mumbai have their pros and cons. Delhi will always have a special place in my heart. Whenever we go there, we do silly things like travel to our old places and say — yahan yeh woh karte the, hamara purana ghar yahan hota, yeh neighbours nayi chhat daali hai — those are things that I will never tire of about Delhi, those little trips down memory lane.

What should change
When I first came here and I was looking for a house in Yari Road (2009) here was one building that I really liked but my broker said I wouldn’t get it because of my surname. When I asked to meet them, I thought if they met me they might like me, he said, ‘Nahi madam, woh deti hi nahi hai as a policy.’ That’s very wrong but something no one can do anything about. In general, people should be aware about this and not practise it in the country. Enough people are suffering because of all these differences. I think the more closely we live next to or in close proximity to each other, all these differences will disappear. That’s why I think that people from all different religions and places should live together.