Source: The New York Times

Each time I visit Mumbai, I make a pilgrimage to an old five-story building with crumbling balconies on Nepean Sea Road. It’s where I lived during the ’60s and ’70s — the first two decades of my life. I went back a few weeks ago. Standing outside, I thought about the diverse, cosmopolitan city I knew, and how it has changed.

We lived in a single room. Our flat was shared by four families: We were Hindu, the other three Muslim. Our landlord, who lived in the room next to ours, had a kitchen in common with us; down the hall were two communal toilets. Muslim families lived on the two floors above us, but the top floor family was Hindu, as were the shopkeepers below.

Our differing religions almost never caused friction. Once in a while, my mother might complain about the smell of beef being cooked by the landlady. We’d occasionally grill tiny pork sausages over the toaster in our room, in secret retaliation. Usually, though, religion came up only in the context of festivals: The neighbors gave us fresh meat each time they slaughtered a lamb for Eid; we invited their children to light firecrackers with us to celebrate Diwali.

Which is not to say we lived in blissful harmony. There were frequent (often spectacular) altercations — over kitchen counter space, the limited water supply in the flat’s storage tanks, a common electricity bill, a shared doorbell. Surprises left unflushed in the toilets elicited particular rancor. Ashamed, I never invited classmates over.

The compensation was our South Bombay address. We were in the most cosmopolitan part of the city — the area with the best shops, movie theaters and restaurants. Art Deco buildings lined Marine Drive. Every evening, we’d walk to the neighborhood called Breach Candy, right next to the American Consulate housed in a former maharaja’s mansion, and enjoy the breeze blowing in from the Arabian Sea.

Although money was always tight, my parents could have probably scraped together enough to buy a small flat in the suburbs. But these seemed impossibly remote and provincial back then: Visiting our relatives in the suburbs required long commutes on crowded trains, and I always returned covered with mosquito bites.

Now, when even distant suburbs boast malls and multiplexes, our disdain seems quaint. In 1971, the population of South Bombay and the suburbs stood at about three million each. By 2011, the suburbs had tripled (and the metro area beyond increased even more), while the population of the South remained stable. Even the United States government has sold off the maharaja’s mansion and moved its consulate north to Bandra-Kurla, hailed as the new hub of the city, now known as Mumbai.

Old problems remain. Over half of the population lives in slums. The suburban rail system has become even more dehumanizing: About 800 passengers die annually in falls from overcrowded compartments. Major investment in road projects, skewed heavily toward the interests of the affluent, has resulted in booming car ownership and multiple choke points. Soulless new high-rises erupt randomly from the landscape, with little heed paid to infrastructure or aesthetics.

Read more