Amchi Mumbai

I need to consult my wife on whether we should continue keeping our maid, as she is not a Marathi by birth. Because the last thing I want is a vault of anger from the Thackreys or the Chauhans for outsourcing the job out of Maharastra and depriving the Marathi manoos of prospective jobs. Till we come to any definitive conclusion on keeping the maid on our pay role, I have advised the maid not to utter the exact geographical part of India to which she belongs, as a precautionary measure.

After Raj Thakrey ate a huge chunk of Sivsena votes in last general election, which the sena chief admitted for their debacle, just by playing the Marathi Manoos card, without doing anything for them, Sivsena slowly folded itself into the same mode to cash in the already heated up situation. The ruling coalition felt this is not going the way they want as they were previously happy with Raj Thakrey, for just eating into Sivsena's votes. To catch the remaining manoos, which either were not fasinated with Raj Thakrey's face or idea, the ruling govt decided to play their own card on this direction. So came Mr. Chauhan and announced that in order to drive in Mumbai as a Taxiwala, you need to be a Marathi first. If you are not one then you would be branded as Bhaiya universally and would be packed back to your respective native places for good.

Now where this taxi came into politics? Irrespective of weather you are a politician or not you need a taxi at some point or other. In fact politicians might not need them ever as their garage is already over packed with luxury cars. It is the common man who were seen running after taxis in their day-to-day life. If we go by the records treasured in files at the municipality office, which keep a note of all those complains filed by customers for last century or so against the Taxiwalas and Taxis, I doubt we would find even one citing language being a center point of the complain. But strangely the govt forgoing all those millions of complains against the smelling taxis, rude behavior of taxiwalas, fatal condition of the vehicle, to even the taxi not equipped with a decent audio system to play their favorite Shahruk Khan songs, they thought of setting right the thing for which there are least of complains or none.

After making the high command red faced Mr. Chauhan did a U-turn, much to the relief of all those bhaiyas who play taxi in Mumbai. Few were happy that for the time being they were not forced to go to a primary school to learn Marathi, at the same time rest were skeptical about the move and the subsequent U-turn of the CM. Mr.Chauhan on records later affirmed that he is been grossly mis-quoted by the media and he has only asked the taxiwalas to know either of Marathi, Hindi or Gujurati to be eligible to drive. Now Sivsena and MNS are red faced. Which red face can Mr.Chauhan digest is long to be seen. But for the time being all is well and bhayas are back in business.

Not only bhayas, but it seems the marathi manoos are long been harassed by a bunch of other entities. Corporate giants like Mukesh Ambani, icons like Sachin Tendulkar are also part of the harassing list. Already Bal Thackrey has shown his dissatisfaction for these two gentlemen and advised them to refrain from spreading anti marathi sentiments. Mr.Thackrey, Mumbai is better known for three things : Bollywood, Cricket and the financial capital, than just marathi or bhayas running taxis all around. Of course we can skip Dawood Ibrahim and the Thackreys who equally made mumbai famous, for the time being.

Now lets see where Mumbai stands without these three. Honestly there isn't much Maharastra left in bollywood, which is comprehensibly been taken over by short stuffs like Amir Khan, Sharuk Khan, Salman Khan. I don't see any Khadelkars, Sindes, Wadalkars or Desais dominating the bollywood or at least dominating in next 30 odd years even. In the women section it is again over powered by all the Chopras, Bachhans, Kapoors leaving girls like Rakhi Shawant to squeeze in somehow to do some odd item numbers. So the remaining marathi in bollywood are the Rakhi Shawants only. Sorry to say there isn't much to take home as a marathi.

Gone are those days when guys like Sunil Joshi, Ajit Agarkar, Nilesh Kulkarni got the chance to be part of Indian team. If it isn't for Sachin Tendulkar, people would have long forgotten Maharastra as a contributer to Indian cricket. The little master is the last man standing. I don't see The Ajinka Rahanes, Abhisekh Nayars making any serious contribution to Indian cricket. I won't be surprised at all if I don't see any marathi getting the Man of the match award again, once Sachin decides to hang his boot.

The finance part of Mumbai is taken care by all the big corporates present there. The said companies are biggie not because they have their head quarters in Mumbai, but because they have a wide spread presence. Strikeout all the profits and business they make across India and ask them to survive with the income done within the Maharastra geography, I bet all of them would go bankrupt within a day. So the boasting of Mumbai being the financial capital needs some serious introspection as people across India are somehow responsible and contributor in making it one.

I hope the Thackrays and the Chauhans would someday understand that Mumbai has got a much bigger identity than just the marathi manoos. Irrespective of one being Bhaya or Bhabi, has got some role to play in making this city a vibrant and loving destination for many. Sooner these guys understand this fact, would be better for all those millions living in Mumbai and for Mumbai at large.