Love and loathing in Mumbai

 From The Independent:

It occurred to me that if I worked on my novel as they were working on the tables, I too would be taken care of.

We had water only twice a day in my building, so I had to plan things in such a way that I was free from seven to nine in the mornings, and six to eight in the evenings. The rest of the time I wrote.

"The neighbours complain that you make no noise at all." 

Years ago I read a parable in a comic book of a man who digs for water, gives up, starts digging elsewhere, and goes on like this the whole day. At sunset, he realises that if he had stuck to one place, he would have hit water by now. The parable frightened me all through the 1990s, when I lived abroad. Fear of drifting brought me back to India; but after seven years here, I find myself still moving about. Yet I know now that there is a meaning to these movements; I know now that they also serve, who drift and dream.

My broker couldn't believe it. He took me by the hand. "For 40 years I've worked and still I have nothing. From the moment you came here, everything you've touched has turned to gold. Why would you ever leave Mumbai?"

 If you have not read Aravind Adiga's "The White Tiger" you should.