Lewis Carroll would have been stumped by what is happening in Mumbai today. Carroll%u2019s Tweedledum and Tweedledee fight, only to embrace and escape together in the face of a thunderstorm. A casual and apparently spontaneous repartee between Abu Azmi and Raj Thackeray has given the impression that a massive confrontation is brewing. If not for the sensationalising electronic media picking up on stray and provocative remarks, the so-called violent divide between the north Indians and the Marathi community would have withered away in a couple of hours. The city has witnessed far more violent outbursts from Raj%u2019s uncle, Shiv Sena chief Balasaheb Thackeray, and the likes of Abu Azmi. Mumbai%u2019s citizens have learnt to take these aggressive debates in their stride. These antics create tension in some small areas for a little while and then quickly die down. In the crowded streets and trains, nobody really knows or cares who is Marathi or who is Bihari. There are nearly fifty small-time professions that are dominated by the so-called north Indians. These could have been done by the sons of the soil too %u2014 like driving taxis or distributing milk, selling bhelpuri or running a laundry, which means ironing clothes for the vast middle class of the city including the white-collar Marathi community. None of these north Indians invades the job or identity of the Marathi Manoos, who would choose unemployment over these %u2018lowly%u2019 jobs. And yet Abu Azmi and Raj were able to spread tension al
