The Dazzle Of Diwali In A Shining And Struggling Mumbai

In the chaotic and blinding dazzle of Diwali celebrations in Mumbai, I searched for numbers that would help put a definiteness to it all. How large is the festival economy considering that Diwali is the motherlode of all festival spending? What is the gap between the topmost spenders and those at the bottom of the wealth pyramid? How has this inequality gap behaved in the past decade or in the past five years since the pandemic? And what can all this tell us about Mumbai’s society as it is today?

Searching for answers to such questions is like trying to find a quiet and no-smoke spot in the city that routinely goes berserk with firecrackers, shrugging off their impact on the worsening air quality and offering nonsensical explanations to justify the continued use of the stuff. Such a spot does not exist; even our homes are suffused with the lingering ‘firecracker air’. The rich and poor areas alike had Air Quality Index (AQI) in the ‘poor’ to ‘very poor’ and ‘hazardous’ categories on Diwali days this year too. And no amount of preening that ‘we in Mumbai have better AQI on post-Diwali days than Delhi does’ will help us in the long run.

That apart, it seemed that the firecracker market had seen no dampness at all; local media reported that there was an increase of at least 15 and 20 per cent in the prices of most firecrackers and that families had come to purchase with budgets ranging from Rs 500 to Rs 2 lakh, with a few spending several times the two lakhs. Several lakhs to noisily blow up paper and powder is a bit too much, but evidently there’s that much money going around to be literally blown up. There is no clarity yet on how large the market has been this festive season, but presumably large enough.

Then came along the news reports about the Confederation of All India Traders’ (CAIT) helpful assessment—a helpful pointer in the paucity of data and trend analyses—that pointed to the Mumbai Metropolitan Region notching up over Rs 70,000 crore in festive trade this Diwali. The total Diwali sales across the country reached a record Rs 6.05 lakh crore, it stated, with Rs 5.40 lakh crore in goods trade and Rs 65,000 crore in services, marking the highest festive business in India’s history. Good for the economy. The Mumbai Metropolitan Region alone made up more than 11.7 per cent of the staggering Rs 6.05 lakh crore. As for Mumbai city itself, the search for data with integrity continues, underscoring yet again the need for better mapping, tracking and analysis.

Where data is not easily available, there are stories. And who better than Mumbai’s very own Shobhaa De to tell one? Once an edgy editor, the pioneering socialite and popularly anointed priestess of glam has had a keen eye for trends in the city for at least four decades now. On a television show, a slightly shocked De narrated how a much sought-after restaurant in Mumbai serves 1,400 guests each night in two seatings, with people streaming into it in Lamborghinis and Aston Martins and spending several lakhs at every table.

“Who are these people? I have no idea,” she laced her words with amazement. “The kind of money in Mumbai is astonishing. (This) single restaurant has a turnover of Rs 2-3 crore a night… I walked into that restaurant to see it myself because I heard these numbers. I said, ‘This can’t be true…’ I was in a state of shock. I didn’t know a single face in all 700 diners. They were young, and they were ordering bottles and bottles of the best in-line tequila for the table. Each table was spending in the lakhs, but they were complete strangers.” This was, of course, Bastian, which is co-partnered by actor Shilpa Shetty and restaurateur Ranjit Bindra and has become a must-visit for those who count their disposable incomes in lakhs or crores.

The questions that De posed are both reflective and indicative. Reflective of the state of the city’s economy that has the top spenders who could rival the world’s wealthiest, the millions in the middle who are squeezed to their margins, and the tens of millions at the bottom who struggle to pay fees and buy enough milk for the entire family in their slum tenement. And indicative of the shift in the generational wealth and status in Mumbai's society, those who spend the top rupee in Mumbai do not necessarily come from families who boast legacy and wealth; they may well be the top earners in some of the coveted jobs in the world in the fields of finance, law, real estate, and the media, among other sectors that have seen a boom.

Reports like the Hurun Wealth Report estimate Mumbai’s economy to have surpassed $400 billion, making it the richest city in India, with the maximum number of the country’s millionaire households at 142,000, and it has a high concentration of nearly 100 billionaires. So, yes, there are zones of ultra-wealthy and uber-luxe in Mumbai; they have always existed, and now they seem to have expanded and deepened. Equally, there are many zones of struggle and miserable day-to-day drudgery across the city that make life a living hell for millions who either love the city’s grind or have no alternatives to pursue. By anecdotal accounts, the gap appears to have increased much like the trend for India itself.

But Shining Mumbai and Struggling Mumbai both seem to have spent well this Diwali. Just how much and where, we do not know yet.

Smruti Koppikar, an award-winning senior journalist and urban chronicler, writes extensively on cities, development, gender, and the media. She is the Founder Editor of the award-winning online journal ‘Question of Cities’ and can be reached at smruti@questionofcities.org.

news