The World's Largest City

Or...why did the Tourist cross the road?

Mumbai is the world's biggest city proper. About 18 million people live in the city's 233 square miles. By comparison, New York City crams 8 million people into 304.8 square miles.

Yesterday I went for a walk outside the apartment. I meant to walk to the nearby Sidhi Vinayak Mandir, about half a mile away down a relatively untrafficked path. But when I reached the key intersection, I decided to keep going instead. I took a look at the mix of pedestrians and vehicles in the intersection (it resembled an ongoing game or chess or two armies in the midst of advancing towards each other) and decided I'd rather not cross the road.

In the past, India's infrastructure left something to be desired. Cows, dogs and three-wheeled carts shared potholed tracks. Drivers sped along with no regard for lanes, lights or direction of traffic. Now there are no dogs or cows in the streets of urban Mumbai, and the three-wheeled rickshaws have been banished to the suburbs. But the decrease in rickshaws has accompanied a rapid increase in the number of personal vehicles on the road. It used to be an unheard of luxury for a family to own a car, now many do. If the increase continues at its current pace - and it probably will, since India-based Tata motors plans to release a much-hyped mini car that will sell for ~$2000 within two months - then the increase will tax the city's streets past what they might be able to bear. (Even if you assume an eventual 20 people/car, that's almost 1 million cars. There are ~618 million cars registered in the entire United States, which comes out to ~1 person/2 cars) Indian authorities are at work on a new Metro system, but considering the costs and planning associated with such a project, it might not be done for a while.

So there I was, on the corner of anxiety and confusion. Most pedestrians crossed the street by walking out into it, one car at a time. This meant that passing vehicles often grazed people's elbows, knees and knapsacks. No one seemed especially concerned by this.

Visitors to Mumbai probably assume that there's some trick to walking down the street that only natives can master. This is only partly true. I'm positive that people get hit all the time.

From inside a car the trip can be more harrowing. A driver in India needs needlesharp spatial perception, a certain disregard for risk, and the ability to turn the car on a dime. To say that cars pass within inches of each other is an understatement. They pass within centimeters. Sometimes, they touch.

The sidewalks are narrower, too. Five people walk abreast in a space no wider than a European shower stall. People live in shacks piled up on sidewalks, or in alleys, or atop open construction sites. Entire stores are smaller than a college dorm room.

The most noticeable thing about Mumbai is the constant presence of humanity. You don't just see and hear your neighbors, sometimes you smell them as they pass you by. People who don't know each other will sit side by side on trains, their elbows in each other's laps. It's an attitude that spills over into relationships, too. There's no division between the personal and the political, so to speak. Everyone gets in each other's business, it's impossible not to. Young women in their 20s should be prepared for the fact that everyone - from shopkeepers to cabbies - will ask them when they're getting married. (Really - it's happened to me twice. Both people were mildly shocked that I didn't know the answer.)