‘There was a wonderful spirit in 1970s Mumbai’ – Times of India

Long before 1991, when India was fueled by the feeling that anyone could make it, 1970s Mumbai was filled with people who came from nothing and did great things, journalists and memoirs ‘A Rude Life’ said Veer Sanghvi, author of, in a session of Times Litfest. Examples of this can-do spirit he had were Dhirubhai Ambani, who went from petrol pump attendant to tycoon, and Amitabh Bachchan. “Amitabh was a business executive in Calcutta, working for a company called Bird & Co. He dropped everything, came to Bombay to become an actor and faced tough times – one night, he slept on a bench in Marine Drive – but he made it. There was that feeling about Bombay, which I think the rest of India might have captured, that anything can happen.

During the session, Sanghvi discussed his experiences over the decades – personal and political alike. For example, he detailed the disenchantment that was felt with Indira Gandhi because Sanjay Gandhi was in the limelight out of the blue. “People had heard about him vaguely. We knew that one of his sons was a quiet pilot who didn’t want to get involved in politics and the other was a motor mechanic of some description and that he would hang out with characters who could philanthropically be called thugs. He said that this was the real beginning of dynastic politics.

In his book, he recalls telling Benazir Bhutto that the ISI had persuaded Osama bin Laden to stay in South Asia even after the First Afghan War. Did this mean that the ISI should have known about 9/11? “ISI had very close ties with the Taliban who had sheltered Osama. The plot was hatched in Kandahar with the help of the ISI and parts of Afghanistan controlled by the Taliban. It is hard to believe that an international conspiracy of this magnitude could have happened without the involvement of some of the ISI men. ”

The development of Indian media was also discussed. “The language they have adopted on television is not the language that people used in debates, it is the language of Twitter. Political spokespersons have effectively become a troll form with their lips closed,” he says, comparing the debate with the WWF.