In the hours immediately following the Bombay train blasts of 11 July, we saw much of the city's generous and resilient spirit. Ordinary people briskly took the injured to hospitals, donated blood, handed out biscuits and water bottles. We also saw commuters getting into the trains again, coming to work, attending school and returning to normal life. We cheered: Salaam, Bombay.
And yes, the city deserves our salaams. It has always been a slightly unreal city – heroic, with a great heart. The city of dreams and dreamers, the city of Bollywood. And yes, India's commercial film industry has helped to create the myth of Bombay.
In one familiar kind of film, the young hero arrives in the city, struggles for a while and then achieves success. A variation on this has the young hero meeting a girl, romancing her, struggling for a bit and then winning her over. In the second kind, the gritty 'realistic' crime film, the young antihero arrives in the city, struggles for a bit and then slips into – well, not quite 'failure', but a life of crime. Indeed, in such films, this is just another kind of success.
In short, one kind of Bollywood film shows us the Bombay that is a firmament, studded with stars and starlets. The other kind, meanwhile, takes us into a version of the underworld. As for the city's 24/7 news channels, they are generally busy on another battlefield – warring for soundbites and ratings whenever the city is in a crisis, unwilling to give the time and space needed for a deeper analysis of Bombay's problems.