It’s Bombay, it’s Mumbai, it’s home

I moved to Mumbai when I was nine. A Pahadi girl in hand-me-down sweaters with a Hindi-English tongue. I landed in the city fast asleep on a red-eye Air India flight, clutching my mother’s sari like it was the last familiar thing I had. As the kaali-peeli curved past the streets at dawn, the first sight that stirred me awake was the Haji Ali Dargah — bathed in sunrise, floating on the Arabian Sea, shimmering like a promise. I didn’t know the language. I didn’t know the map. But in that moment, I knew: I was home. I was a Mumbaikar.

We came here not by design, but by transfer. My parents were in government service, and we hopped from town to town, state to state, enough that I knew never to get too attached to a pincode or a school. Marathi wasn’t taught in our home, wasn’t part of my curriculum, and wasn’t mandatory. And yet, after three decades of living here, I’m told by politicians, by Twitter eggs, by MNS banners that I’m not a “true” Mumbaikar because I don’t speak Marathi.

Mumbai — or Bombay, depending on what the soul calls it — is a city of many migrations and many contradictions. It’s the city of Shobhaa De’s English, Amrita Fadnavis’ Marathi, Haji Ali’s Urdu, Lalbaug’s Marathi-Portuguese dialect, Dharavi’s Tamil, Malad’s Gujarati, Bandra’s Catholic Konkani, and Lokhandwala’s version of what we’ll generously call Punjabi.

This city hears over 20 languages spoken every single day. It welcomes everyone and no one in equal measure.

The recent Marathi language controversy spearheaded by MNS isn’t about preserving culture — it’s about posturing. When the economy is faltering, governance is chaotic, and Mumbai is flooding yet again, linguistic nationalism becomes the perfect decoy. It allows leaders to manufacture offence, to invent a threat where none exists, and to position themselves as protectors of identity, without having to do the hard work of actual governance.

I say this not as a political pundit, but as someone who’s walked these streets for 30 years. I’ve stood on packed Virar locals with elbows in my ribs. I’ve wept in kaali-peelis stuck in three-hour jams, I’ve written books on the tetrapods of Marine Drive, I’ve marched in Azad Maidan, I’ve gotten lost in Bhuleshwar gullies, and I’ve learned to curse fluently in Bambaiya. If this isn’t what it means to be a Mumbaikar, what is?

Let me be clear: I have enormous respect for Marathi. It is a rich, lyrical, historical language. I want my daughters to learn it, sing in it, and someday write love letters in it. But that’s the difference — love. You nurture a language through inclusion, education, celebration, civic encouragement, and pride. You don’t shove it down people’s throats at petrol pumps and toll nakas.

You cannot weaponise language and then call it culture. That is coercion, not preservation. And it’s also a dangerous precedent. This growing pattern of linguistic majoritarianism across Indian states is troubling. Because if you start mandating that Marathi must be spoken in Mumbai, or Kannada in Bengaluru, then what happens when Bihar insists on Bhojpuri? When Tamil Nadu penalises Hindi? Our states appear to be veering from pride into parochialism, using language not as expressions of pride, but as instruments of exclusion. This is not how federations function. It’s how they fracture.

Linguistic authoritarianism is dangerous. Are we ready to pay the price of turning citizens into outsiders in their own country based on the language they speak? Language should be a bridge, not a tool of dominance. The more we weaponise it, the more we chip away at the idea of India. Language is not a test of belonging. Humanity is.

India’s future depends on language as a celebration, not a checkpoint. We’ve survived because our diversity didn’t divide us. But the way forward is through preventive action, not punitive measures.

We forget that language is also a reflection of history, migration, trauma, and identity. And for many of us, that identity is fluid. As a Pahadi girl with no roots in this soil, I made Mumbai mine not through language but through life. I became a Mumbaikar not because I learnt to roll my R’s but because I learnt to keep going when the city tried to eat me alive.

I know the best pau bhaji is not on Zomato but behind CST station. I’ve learnt that Ganpati visarjan is as much about spirituality as it is about music. I’ve seen enough buildings fall, and friendships collapse, and dreams flail on film sets to know that Mumbai is not a language — it’s a spirit.

And yet, here we are, in 2025, arguing over whether someone who says Bombay instead of Mumbai is anti-Maharashtra. As if that’s the metric for loyalty. Never mind that the Constitution allows states to choose their official language. Never mind that Hindi is spoken by over 44 per cent of Indians. Never mind that we are a polyglot nation of 121 languages spoken by over 10,000 people each. Instead, we’re being told what to say, how to say it, and when to say it — or face the wrath of those who’ve mistaken fear for leadership.

Let’s be smarter than that. Let’s remember that the greatness of Mumbai lies in its ability to absorb — not impose. It has room for everyone. The bhel-puri seller who speaks Tamil. The Gujarati stockbroker who slips into Hindi. The migrant who calls it Bombay because that’s how she first heard the name whispered on a crowded train from Gorakhpur.

This city does not need a language test to decide who belongs. If your heart beats in rhythm with this city’s chaos, then you belong. Because Mumbai isn’t a word. It’s a heartbeat that doesn’t check your accent before it lets you stay. So yes, I don’t speak Marathi fluently. But as a Pahadi who speaks as a Mumbaikar, that should be enough. I don’t need anyone’s permission to belong.

— The writer is an acclaimed author

Features