Mumbai's Yearly Betrayal Courtesy Civic Gaslighting

Monsoon in Mumbai is an infrastructural failure on loop, writes Balram Vishwakarma.

The cost of living in Mumbai is not just financial. It is emotional, physical, and mental. You lose time. You lose rest. You lose access. You lose your sense of belonging, writes Balram Vishwakarma.

(Illustration: Vibhushita Singh/The Quint)

Imagine living in a housing society where the watchman ignores you, the maintenance guy does shabby work, and you do not even know who the secretary is. The lower floors flood, the top floors run out of water, the lift is out of order, and the sewage line has been dug up for weeks. Nobody knows who’s in charge, but somehow, two out of 10 things get done—just not when you need them to.

That, in essence, is Mumbai.

Every year, the rains expose it. Flooded roads, choked drains, stranded citizens, delayed trains. It is not a natural disaster. It is an infrastructural failure on loop. And who foots the bill? The same Mumbaikars who carry this city—whether through taxes, EMIs, rent, or sheer labour. Only to lose time, sleep, and dignity during every monsoon.

This city is often sold as India’s New York. But anyone who has spent more than a decade here knows better. It is a dysfunctional, overpriced housing society with crumbling systems, invisible management, and residents who are overcharged, overworked, and underserved. For all the money, labour, and trust we pour into it through rent, fuel, tolls, and taxes, it’s worth asking: what are we getting in return?

Extortion Dressed Up as Aspiration

Let's start with housing. A one-bedroom flat in Kandivali or Malad—40 kilometers from the city center—in a regular, non-luxury building, costs Rs 80-90 lakh. Even Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA) flats, meant to be affordable, now hover around Rs 50-60 lakh in resale value.

That is not housing. That is extortion dressed up as aspiration.

In return, what does the city offer? Dusty roads, detours, and a dozen departments playing blame ping-pong. Cops blame the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), the BMC blames the Metro, the Metro blames 2018 Aarey protestors for everything. The rest shrug. Affordable housing barely exists—the city builds around 2,000 affordable flats a year. In a city of more than 20 million people, this is not policy; this is performance art.

Rents are unaffordable, slums deteriorate, and five people share a fan in a 100 square foot room sharing a boundary wall with a luxury tower with six-floor parking and infinity pools.

Public transport tells the same story. In 2019, Mumbai had air conditioned mini-buses that BEST launched with pride. Then one day, they vanished. No explanation. While the city kept growing, the bus fleet shrank. At peak hours, bus stops look like refugee camps. People wait 30-40 minutes to cram into a tin box on wheels.

The insult only gets better. Ticket prices were doubled, a direct hit on the working class. The people who rely on public transport for survival now pay twice as much for fewer buses and longer waits in the rain. No improvement or empathy. Just higher fares. Less dignity.

The city keeps pouring money into sea-links, flyovers, and gentrified metro stations. These are designed for cars and credit cards, not for calloused hands.

Mumbai is the most densely populated city in the world, yet its infrastructure rewards those with cars and punishes those without.

The Monsoon Deathtrap

When the rains arrive, everything collapses.

Roads vanish. Drain reverse. People miss hospital appointments. Children get stuck in traffic. Rickshaw drivers wait in knee-deep water for a fare. All this while the children of netas and babus post beach walks from Europe or sip matcha in North American universities. The people who build, clean, transport, and feed this city are left to navigate its floodwater chaos alone.

The local trains are no better—death traps. People still hang out of doors. Still die. A patch of pothole in Vakola clogs traffic till Goregaon. The Western Express Highway's Airport section has been broken for more than a decade.

Yet, people stay quiet. They wake up earlier. Budget two hours for a 30-minute commute. Laugh at memes about flooding, and call it resilience.

But this is not resilience. This is rot. Manufactured, systemic, intentional.

You would think such widespread frustration would lead to a shake-up. But the fatigue is deep. Families are quietly sending their kids abroad—not for prestige, but to escape. Friends are moving to Gurugram, Hyderabad, Dubai, Singapore. Not for dreams, but for dignity, and maybe bare minimum.

Even the rich have checked out. They still post sunsets from Marine Drive, but their investments are overseas. Their real lives are spread across terminals and time zones. Mumbai, for them, is content. For everyone else, it is a burden.

The city, meanwhile, is becoming more car-centric, more un-walkable, and more hostile to the people who actually live and work here. Despite most residents relying on trains, buses, and their own feet, the planning revolves around cars and flyovers. Shade is rare. Footpaths are broken. If you live beyond Andheri, you are invisible.

The Real Cost of Living Here

So, what are we paying for? Because the cost of living in Mumbai is not just financial. It is emotional, physical, and mental. You lose time. You lose rest. You lose access. You lose your sense of belonging.

And you do not even know who to hold accountable. The city functions like a black box. Projects get announced. Budgets get allocated. But there is no transparency, no grievance system, no real public feedback. You find out your road was repaired because someone cut a ribbon. You discover your area is "fighting pollution" when a contractor sends a bill for a mist machine that was being operated during heavy rains.

This is not urban development. This is civic gaslighting. And the people in charge are betting on your silence. Because when it floods, they do not lose sleep. You do.

So no, this is not just another Mumbai-is-collapsing rant. This is a serious, uncomfortable question: how long will we keep adjusting? How long will we accept this betrayal? Would you stay in a housing society like this, where basic services fail, no one is accountable, and you still keep paying more every year?

Probably not. But here we are. Still paying. Still waiting. Still stuck.

(The author is a writer, marketing strategist, and ethnographer based in Mumbai. This is an opinion piece. The views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)