I love Bombay. I hate Mumbai

I love this city. I really do. After all, it's been my hometown ever since I was born and I have great memories associated with this place - too numerous to name here (though I really should put down a few before I forget about them). I defend it to out-of-towners (that now includes most of my colleagues at work) and believe passionately without a doubt that it is the best place in India to live.

But I also hate this city. Or rather, what it has become since I moved back from a one-year stay in Delhi (where I went to study journalism). I now see its flaws more clearly - and I hate what it's being reduced to. So, at times, I find myself trashing the city in front of other people who really love it.

It's got to a point now where I think of Bombay and Mumbai as two separate entities - where Bombay is the city as I remember it (and as I hoped it would become). It's a place where people can party till dawn, yet somehow not inconvenience others, go home late at night without fear, where people don't slot you into categories depending on where you come from in India, where there are no ghettos, lots of sand on all the beaches, less traffic and a lot of joie de vivre. There's tons of open space for kids to play in, birdsong in the mornings and late at night, if you listen very hard, you can hear the trains go by.

Mumbai, unfortunately, is the reality I inhabit, where lawlessness is on the rise, everything green is under threat and where human life seems to have less and less value. It's the place where we pack ourselves into matchboxes, put with too many inconveniences and wistfully envy the things other cities have - like nice weather, bigger apartments, smaller commuting times and large parks.

So does this rationalisation help? Yes, it does, because this way I can always have Bombay, and what's more, no one can take it away from me!