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A scene from Bluffmaster.

When you have spent your entire life in a city, it becomes an inseparable part of you, an invisible extension that spells out itself subconsciously in your beliefs and behaviour.

Mumbai (although I grew up calling it Bombay) characterises itself in several facets of my cosmopolitan ideas and ideals. To define Mumbai is to measure a mother's love. Impossible.

Nevertheless, Mumbai makes for a fascinating study. Despite its many flaws and failings, its crumbling infrastructure, nagging poverty, political wrongness, unapologetic materialism, blazing contradictions and ever-piling filth, a devoted Mumbaikar cannot help but look at its brighter side. Whether it is Mumbai's indomitable spirit, sky-high ambitions, glitzy Bollywood, moolah-raking corporate dynasties or defiance for conventions, friendly 'no hang-ups' attitude, terrific work culture, love for junk food, a throbbing night life (and not just the club scene), Mumbai has adopted a generally accepting and amiable approach to anything new or unknown.

Ironically, it is this very all-encompassing temperament that comes under fire every time a party of mischief makers arrives at their own politically-driven motives by maligning Mumbai's reputation as a city of dreams, co-existent dreams.

Significantly enough, a lot of these afore-mentioned elements have been captured on celluloid with remarkable eloquence, romanticised reverence and distinctive wit by several Hindi filmmakers over the years.

Be it in the philosophical musings of Johnny Walker's animatedly articulated melody, Yeh hai Bambai Meri Jaan (CID) or the indefatigable spirit of two destitute kids in Raj Kapoor's [Images] Boot Polish or Kundan Shah's satirical take on the city's corrupt workings in the crisply-written Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron. Mumbai lends its grey persona and maverick charm to all these movies.

Lately, however, the essence of Mumbai has taken a backseat as Bollywood appears to be far too fixated with its big, bad city image to think of anything else.

As much as I felt disturbed by the portrayal of communal disharmony in Mani Ratnam's Bombay or appreciated the pressing need and hard-hitting honesty of films like Aamir, Mumbai Meri Jaan [Images] and Black Friday or thrilled at the technical finesse and brooding intensity of Ram Gopal Varma's murky exposition of Mumbai's thriving underworld in Satya [Images], I am weary of watching other poorly-executed rehashes of these volatile facets of my beloved city in one mindless film after another. Believe it or not, there's more to Mumbai than sex and crime. Surely, it can make a better muse than this.

Like, recently, I watched Madhur Bhandarkar's Fashion. Having favourably reviewed Page 3 and Corporate, I went in with a reasonable degree of expectations only to discover Fashion suffers from an overdose of Bhandarkarism sans the meaty one-liners to wholly impress. The director's imagery of Mumbai is getting jarringly Page 3ish to work over and over again. The inhabitants of Bhandarkar's universe strike as caricatured drama queens, pea-brained fashion designers and superficial corporate sharks to convey the cut-throat drive, hard-nailed professionalism or rousing individuality of the high-society Mumbai-ite.

I miss Mumbai, before it became all about malls and multiplexes. I miss the simplicity of its sing-chana chomping characters at Gateway and the warm glow of the orange sun going down amidst the chaos of Chowpatty or the peculiar accent in the friendly Parsi uncle's tone around the nostalgic lanes of Colaba .

The reality of romance revealed itself in sublime glory every time Amol Palekar and Vidya Sinha exchanged shy glances at the bus stop in Chhoti Si Baat while Amitabh Bachchan [Images] and Moushmi Chaterjee frolicked under South Mumbai showers in Manzil even as Naseeruddin Shah [Images] fantasised about marrying girl-next-door Deepti Naval [Images] within the cosy confines of a chawl in Katha.

I have lived in this Mumbai through the eyes of Bollywood, the one I grew up on. It's incredible how a film can forge a fond memory of a landmark/locality with its impressionable viewer because of the larger than life manner in which it is presented on the silver screen. It's also interesting to trace the changing face of Mumbai's personality through the movies.

From the sparsely populated Marine Drive of Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi to the double-deckered rendezvous of Big B [Images] and Shashi Kapoor in Shaan [Images] to the traffic-packed roads visible in every second film shot in Mumbai today, things, as Bob Dylan rightly said, have changed.

Memories of a contemporary middle-class Mumbai can still be found in Aziz Mirza's earthy Raju Ban Gaya Gentleman whereas Rohan Sippy showcases it uber cool countenance in the picture-perfect frames of his Bluffmaster [Images]. But when it comes to the trademark Mumbaikar spirit and its easygoing humour along with its gift to think out of the box, director Rajkumar Hirani's Munnabhai [Images] series get it just right. The tapori-spewing street-smart rogue is equally adept at unleashing his stock of jadoo ki jhappis as he is spreading across the message of Gandhigiri.

Never really stuff tourism packages are made of, Mumbai is construed by the people who populate it -- unconditionally good, irreversibly bad and, at times, downright ugly. This diversity provides it with its very flavour, which you'll either become a fan of or reject for good. Sounds like Lonely Planet's description of India, doesn't it? Perhaps it's time Bollywood stopped looking for these complexities and layers in New York, London [Images] and Miami [Images] and told the story of us self-styled Mumbaikars. A certain Danny Boyle just did.

Had I not been living here, I would have foolishly succumbed to the illusion that the everyday Mumbai I speak of and yearn to see on the big screen, doesn't exist anymore. But it does, in the routine of the suburbs, the frivolity of the snobs, the colours of the slums and the encounters between the three.

Do you share my sentiments? What's your favourite Mumbai-moment at the movies? Feel free to write to me at verma.sukanya@rediffmail.com