Mumbai’s authorities, politicians, celebrities have taken its position as India’s entertainment capital to heart. Nothing else can explain the bizarre spectacle that played out with the demolition of Kangana Ranaut’s property. Life in Mumbai is not another Bollywood production. The city recovering from Covid needs to get its priorities right.
Not just Bombay. Poona. Mumbai Metropolitan Region. The whole of Maharashtra. India’s richest, most urbanised, industrialised state. Substantial health infrastructure, both public and private. 20,000 new cases daily. It should have been setting benchmarks for other, less developed states to follow. Inevitably, the failure on the medical front is translating into a savage economic contraction in a state that should have led India’s V shaped recovery, already happening in China. 2. There was always an element of sex and sin in Bombay. The ladies’ bars have gone. Bollywood is dealing with enough issues to be demonised, with the consumption habits of its stars now the focus of a widening probe. Barqat chali jayegi iss shehar se.