Dear Gabriel, With reference to your "curry bath" in Mazagon, it probably came from Ray Chambers on Dockyard Road. This building tenanted by mostly Goans, was notoriously known in the Byculla-Mazagon neighborhood for people throwing such things on passersby walking on the road below. In fact you are lucky that with their limited washroom facilities, you did not receive some other type of bath. Many people did.
While your opinions and that of Jug Suraiya in the Times Blog you have referenced, may have been once true, it is no longer the case. Indians living in urban dwellings have long since realized that their municipalities are not capable of cleaning lanes and streets and it is they who are ultimately responsible for public hygiene. Having realized that, things are getting better in at least Bombay and some other cities. About the filth in slums, what you say is true. There again the cause is limited facilities rather than the perosnal hygiene of people themselves. If there is a water shortage, you will bathe once a month. If there are no proper latrines, you will use whatever spare land is available nearby. If there are no road bins to dispose of your food scraps, you will throw it on an already acculumlated heap. The fault really is not even that of the municipalities who do not have adequate funding for such jobs. It is that of the politicians, in this case the councillors who use the money to stuff their own pockets. In the case of Bombay, the municipal corporation has a budget that exceeds that of many countries. Perhaps less than half is used for municipal services. It is also the fault of the Indian courts that stop zealous and courageous officers from demolishing slums as they rise. Indian politicians will of course encourage them for vote banks. Only the courts could have stopped them but they didn't. In the case of JoeGoaUk's most recent photograph of a filthy Panjim street, filled with biodegradeable and therefore stinking garbage, was it not the responsibility of the local authority to dispose of it rather than to expect the Panjim public not to generate it? Is it not the duty of the PMC to create a system and process to avoid such a scene? This is only the beginning. Soon you can count on Goa cties and towns to stink to high heaven given the fact that Swiss bank accounts are being opened in record numbers. Let the poeple pick the garbage and throw it in front of every politico's house I say. Then you might see some change. Regards, Roland. On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 11:27 PM, Gabriel de Figueiredo < [email protected]> wrote: > > Considering that I nearly had a "curry" bath whilst walking the lanes of > Mazagon in 1979-80, as well as seeing people bathing in water that was > nearly black in colour whilst going through some slums in Mahim/Bandra, I > did not really think that Indians as a whole have a very hygienic > life-style. > >
