Mumbai is a city straight out of a Philip K Dick novel
Mumbai is, among other things, a Philip K Dick megalopolis. It’s been exactly six months since I moved here, and in those six months you wonder about what kind of a city it is; only wondering because you get the feeling that even after six years or six decades there are people who still don’t get it. What is undeniable is that multiple realities exist in the same city-space and that it will take some doing to even scratch the surface of some of those realities (thank God for journalists). Wednesday night’s bombings ripped open a connection between those multiple realities. The blasts were scary, and depressing. And then came the post-blasts noise. You have to wonder if the people making this noise ‘get’ Mumbai; and so Philip K Dick pops into mind. PKD was a prolific writer of books dealing with parallel universes, alternate histories, and intrusive governments. Many readers might be more familiar with the films made from his stories: recently The Adjustment Bureau, and famously Blade R
