anil thakraney
---------------------------------
A study suggests Mumbai is the rudest city in the world. (Too bad they forgot
to cover saadi Dilli, that place would win hand's down in such a poll
it's
only in our capitol city that you can get shot down because you scraped past a
Maruti Esteem on Chandni Chowk). I actually agree with their findings
I think
our city has lost it in terms of basic courtesy and civic behaviour. People are
becoming increasingly crude and disgusting in public places.
However, instead of trashing the citizens, I actually empathise with them. You
work your butt out earning taxes to run the nation, and all you get in return
is shoddy roads and pathetic living conditions. And you're expected to help
careless dudes when they spill papers on spit-laden streets? You travel hours
to get to work each day, in the most trying circumstances, at times you drown
in open nallahs laced with dog faeces and rat piss, and all you get in return
is a slum-surrounded dabba that you self-deceivingly call home, and you're
expected to say a cheery hello to equally angsty strangers? You have a
government that looks the other way when you are in deep trouble, that does
nothing to worry about improving lives of people who own this city, and is
instead more worried about filling up its own coffers, apart from spending all
its energies demolishing dance bar girls and wardrobe malfunctioned models, and
you're expected to say a sweet thank-you to the drunk, abrasive,
ghoos devouring clerk at the ration card office? No thanks, I say. As the
world sniggers at aamchi Mumbai post the survey, they would do well to remember
that Parisians, Romans and Londoners would do far worse in similar
circumstances. Forget thanks and sorry, the sort of expletives they'd fart out
on the streets, even I, with my solid reputation for poor taste intact, would
find unprintable. Forget accusing them for being rude, I salute Mumbaikars for
keeping their heads in what could be the worst surviving conditions in any city
in the whole wide world.
But is it THAT bad?
I am often blasted for being overtly negative about stuff, after all, some
would say, nice, nice plans are afoot for the city. The PM was down to
inaugurate the Metro, we'll soon have a brand new airport, there's that
sea-link project, Marine Drive is set to get a stunning make-over, Dharavi will
soon start resembling Manhattan, etc, etc. Cool, super, sounds great to me too,
but I am afraid, going by the past record (and since the same bunch of jokers
continue to head all our political parties), all this is plain cheap talk,
uttered simply to achieve two things: strengthen assorted vote banks, and slime
off most of the funds that will get generated for the various projects.
Consider this: we have built geometrically incorrect flyovers over both, Worli
and Mahim, at huge cost to the tax payer, but no one was held accountable, and
life just goes on. We cannot get the much needed Peddar Road flyover going
because a nightingale won't sing. The so-called sprucing up of our existing
domestic airport is taking millenniums to get done. God alone knows when (and
if at all) the Bandra-Worli sea link project will get completed. And instead of
paying serious attention to our totally crumbled local train network, we are
busy dreaming of a Metro. Here's what will eventually happen: Every single
project will, as has always been the case, get badly stuck in a quagmire of
executive lethargy, inter-party carping, dirty politics, rabid corruption,
mindless public interest litigations and slums revolts. And worse of all,
because the government wants to prove it's serious about development, roads
will get stupidly dug up and left in that state for years together
(it's the same situation in Bangalore where I am currently located, and where
the good doc has arrived to make all the right noises about growth and
development, as he leaves mind-numbing traffic snarls in his wake) making the
average Mumbaikar's miserable life even more degraded than it already is.
And they expect the citizens to be polite and well-mannered at all times like
the Londoners and the New Yorkers? &[EMAIL PROTECTED] @*%, is all I can say.
---------------------------------
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