Click to play videoMumbai: It's Mumbai's dark but open secret.
Screen writer Anjum Rajabali's first hunt for a home in 1991 took months as he heard the same refrain from real estate brokers: "Sorry Mr Rajabali, no Muslims allowed."
"I said, Juhu, and the brokers just laughed. They said it was impossible. Large areas were marked out. it was a horrible feeling," says he.
Desperate, Rajabali finally bought a home in the name of his wife, a Hindu. But 13 years later, while looking for a larger home, Rajabali refused to use the same tactic.
"I didn't want to do that. I wanted to be straightforward, let the truth be out. In my own country, I was made to feel like an outsider," he says.
It doesn't matter how much money you have. Top film stars, household names for you and me, as well as TV actors and models almost all have had it tough because of their religion.
Almost none of them were willing to say it aloud, an evidence of just how sensitive the issue is.
The film industry, which boeats of icons like Mohammad Rafi, Salim-Javed and Khayyam, now shows a pattern of Muslim artistes simply not finding a place to stay in Mumbai.
This is just another example of the city-wide discrimination against cosmopolitan Muslims who refuse to settle for Muslim-dominated ghettos.
While real estate agents say the problem exists in every locality, places where Muslims today face maximum resistance from housing societies in upmarket areas.
Real estate agent Prakash Jain says, "In Cuffe Parade, an upmarket neighbourhood in South Mumbai, 90 per cent Muslims will not get in. Brokers just hear the name and if the name is Muslim, they just say no. Without giving a rhyme or reason."
The most cited reasons for rejection, even if often untrue, are that Muslims cut goats in the buildings, eat beef, wear a burqa making others uncomfortable, and are involved with the underworld or terrorism.
With a recent Supreme Court ruling that housing societies retain the right to decide who to accept into their fold, Muslims are finding themselves pushed towards the ghettos, even when that's not where they want to be.
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