30 Years Later, Mumbai Still Feels Like Survival
Thirty years ago, I lived in a tiny one-room chawl in Sahar, Andheri East. The toilet was shared between 10 families. Privacy was a luxury, space was a dream, and survival itself felt like an achievement.
Life revolved around crowded BEST buses, hanging onto the doors of Mumbai local trains, standing in endless queues, and somehow making it through the yearly floods. Mornings began with brisk walks to school, then bus rides to college, sweaty train journeys, and returning home exhausted to a room that barely fit the family. Yet strangely, back then, life felt simple. Hard, but simple. People had less, but complained less.
I left Mumbai almost 30 years ago. Since then, I’ve worked and travelled across many parts of the world. Recently, I visited Mumbai again after decades, carrying memories of the city I once called home.
The skyline has changed beyond recognition. Flyovers everywhere, Metro lines cutting across the city, glass buildings replacing old structures, wider roads, modern airports, luxury towers touching the sky. On paper, Mumbai looks transformed.
But beneath all that concrete and infrastructure, the city feels exactly the same.
The crowds are still relentless. The daily struggle is still written on people’s faces. Civic sense remains painfully absent. People continue spending hours commuting like it’s a normal part of life. Families still adjust inside cramped homes while paying unimaginable prices. The stress, noise, rush, and survival instinct of Mumbai remain untouched.
What struck me the most was this: the old faces are gone, replaced by new generations, but the story hasn’t changed. The city keeps rotating people through the same cycle of struggle.
And yet, most who stayed back seem content. Maybe Mumbai conditions people to accept hardship as routine. Maybe the city gives just enough hope to keep everyone running.
Mumbai has changed its skin, but not its soul. The buildings are new, the people are new, the infrastructure is new, but the everyday life of the common man feels frozen in time.