EPICANTHUS

WHAT THEY HATE ABOUT MUMBAI

“Mumbai is all about dhandha, or transaction. From the street food vendor squatting on a sidewalk, fiercely guarding his little business, to the tycoons and their dreams of acquiring Hollywood, this city understands money and has no guilt about the getting and spending of it. I once asked a Muslim man living in a shack without indoor plumbing what kept him in the city. ‘Mumbai is a golden songbird,” he said. It flies quick and sly, and you’ll have to work hard to catch it, but if you do, a fabulous fortune will open up for you.’ The executives who congregated in the Taj Mahal hotel were chasing this golden songbird.”

New York University journalism professor Suketu Mehta explains why terrorists targeted Bollywood in an op-ed piece printed in the Nov. 28 edition of The New York Times.