There was a Bombay once. A city of fables. A landscape where myth met realism, potential met imaginings, ambition met excursion. Our urbs prima, it was the economic heart and civilised soul of India. For the rest of the country, a tinsel-tinged Neverland where anything was possible. And for its residents, a cornucopia of dhandha-driven dreams in which the next big jump was just around the corner.

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Delhi was an enclave for refugees that was brewed artificially after the decline of the Mughal empire. Calcutta, India's first urban outpost, deteriorated because of its administratively disadvantageous location and the rise of Naxalism. But Bombay remained the first port of call for all foreign influences, a punto de entrada that served as a commercial capital and an assimilator of diverse cultures.

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Bombay, or Mumbai to the locals, was always a city of migrants. 'If you build it, they will come', and in Bombay they came from all over. But unlike migrants anywhere else in India, those that landed here adopted the mannerisms of the city. Instead of changing Bombay, they let themselves be changed by it. Bombay presented sights, sounds and experiences that were absent in any other Indian city. People queued civilly at bus stands and outside elevators. They drove in lanes. They never honked. Their headlights were always on low beam. Taxi drivers and auto pliers, most of them asylum seekers in India's ultimate sanctuary, never declined a fare. The next road or the farthest suburb, it didn't matter where you had to go: the mellifluous, acquiescing 'kaching' of the meter was always the first interaction.

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It was impersonal, but liberating. Tough, but welcoming. Diverse, but tolerant. A culture of hard work was too central to its existence to be side-tracked by communalism. Here you didn't have to be someone, you could become someone. Bombay was a throbbing, thriving global metropolis that was unfazed by its stifling humidity and unperturbed by months of relentless rain. It was a melting pot that had devised its own language, constructed its own cultural communes, and where, irrespective of class, caste, sex or bank balance, everyone constantly engaged with the city instead of receding into insular silos. As Gregory David Roberts wrote in Shantaram, more dreams were dreamt, extinguished and realised in Bombay than in any other place in India.

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It was a land of heroes and villains, characters and dialogues, music and lyrics, verses and beats. To live in Bombay was to celebrate it; to know it, was to love it.

But Bombay, or Mumbai no longer just for the locals, has been going through a troubling transformation. A city running out of space, bursting at the seams, it has grown on the Y-axis for too long. It has pushed a majority of its residents-both old and new-outwards to the periphery. This reimagining of personal and public spaces has led to a competition for comfort and proximity in which communities have slowly lined up against each other. The rise of communal politics, the resurgence of Maratha pride, and the railing against Muslims and migrants by parties such as the Shiv Sena and its offshoot, the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, is a perilous by-product of this geographical realignment. It has replaced constructive competition with reductive rivalry, pitting locals versus migrants, Hindus versus Muslims, the rich versus the middle class. This is manifesting itself in incidents such as the ink attack on Sudheendra Kulkarni, the storming of the BCCI office over the cricket series against Pakistan, and in a general rise in political thuggery.

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Being driven out of the city has also made it difficult for people to interact with Bombay like they once did. It is necessary but no longer "cool" to ride in buses or local trains, which today appear both archaic and unpleasant. In fact, one simple measure of success is being in a position where you don't have to use them any longer. The drying up of open spaces has reduced engagement even further. At Marine Drive, the great open alcove by the sea, you still see industrialists, intellectuals, actors and sportsmen out for an evening walk, mingling anonymously with everyone else. But such settings are no longer the norm.

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In some ways, Bombay has been let down by its residents. There has been a general lowering of standards over the decades-on infrastructure, on open spaces, on the interaction between communities, on the spirit of entrepreneurship, on transport, on healthcare, on nightlife, and on basic freedoms such as what to eat and where to live. The acceptance of these lowered standards, even if under protest, has led to a general decline in the lifestyle and the values that the city once lived by.

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Of course, Bombay has a streak of rebellion in it. Seven months after a blanket beef ban in the state by the BJP-led government, buffalo meat is clandestinely available across the city. For 10 years during the ban on dance bars, which was lifted by the Supreme Court this October 15, they still ran in hidden nooks. But it is unfortunate. For Bombay was the one city in India where you didn't have to rebel for small freedoms-where you did things over the table, not under it.

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Perhaps Bombay's biggest hurdle has been the rise of the rest of India. The migrants who came here in the past were from places that were economically and socially backward in comparison, which neither offered the sights and sounds, and nor the world of opportunities that Bombay could. Today, cities across India are catching up. Everywhere there are multiplexes, malls, pubs, tall glass-fronted buildings, new businesses, and a variety of jobs. Mumbai hasn't been able to pull away further, and so it just doesn't feel as special as it once did. The desire to conform to its rules is fast diminishing. As Mumbai's mind is closing, the rest of India's mind is opening to a degree where the two are heading towards a common ground. Instead of the distinctive Bombaywallah, the city is slowly being taken over by a uniform urban population: with the same prejudices, intolerance, and anxieties that the rest of India suffers from.

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While several arguments have been made about particular metropolises across the world, German sociologist Georg Simmel has offered a revealing descriptor of what makes cities great: "The metropolis reveals itself as one of those great historical formations in which opposing streams which enclose life unfold, as well as join one another with equal right." For India, Bombay was such a cooperative-indifferent and intimate at the same time.

A dialogue from Anurag Kashyap's 2015 film Bombay Velvet sums up perfectly what Bombay meant: "Bambai ke bahar kya hai pata hai? India! (Do you know what is outside Bombay? India!)" Over the next few pages, eminent personalities from across sectors -each with a deep Bombay connect- explore the Bombay of today, chronicling where it is headed, what it has lost, and how it can be reclaimed. For there was a Bombay once. When comes such another?

Follow the writer on Twitter @_kunal_pradhan