Bombay is after all, all about the heart!!!

Today is Eid! My friends are celebrating after a long month of ramazan fasting. I had my invites for Eid lunch. Biryani, korma, phirni, the works.

My bowels are still sturggling with the deposits in it from the lunch and my phone shows up invites for Ganpati home coming feast tonite. My stomach is grumbling! Threatens to go on strike.

But i saw something amazing, while we helped them prepare the phirni and polish it off, they helped prepare the puranpolis and polish em off!! The muslim boys of my building helped pull the cart on which our ganpati came. the hindu boys were hugging the others wishing them Eid mubaraq. This  conjunction of dates has been happening for the last 3- 4 years. And i have been witness to this similar exchange year after year.

Its beautiful!!!! Then where does the hatred come from?? What does the anger arise for?? Why then should there be carnage or bloodbaths in the name of religion when we can in fact enjoy so many festivities by staying together???

Well for today for this festive season and after this day, for sometime, lets stop finding faults with the city. Its only in Bombay where ganpati comes while sheer korma is being shared!!! For Bombay its about the food?? No its all about the heart!!!

Faith

Two months back a friend and i dreamt and conceptualized the mantra 'jail bharo' to let our voices be heard. Voices against corruption, voices for security and prosperity. We started this blog. Shared our views here, there, everywhere. Couldn't make much of an impact. The idea was to spread the word. I had begun to feel helpless, i was unable to do what we had set out to. My voice was getting sadder and lonelier....

I was out of the country for a fortnight, totally disconnected from the world. Incommunicado, inacessible. No clue about what is happening.

Then when i come back, i find this uproar engulfing the country, this huge human sea of protestors. Pleading for their voices to be heard, fasting, satyagraha, cries of jail bharo! Never seen such a huge voluntary outburst of emotion. We have had enuf and now we want to let it be known that its not acceptable. The correctness or not, of the bargain is a topic for another post. I missed all the action, but a lot more to happen and lots more to do and ofcourse lots more to dream.

But here, the point i am making is of the universe coming together and conspiring to fulfil a wish you desperately desire! My desire was that the word be spread. Spread it has and how!!! I am begining to believe again.....

When security arouses fear.....

Over the past few years, a trip to the by-lanes of Bori Mohalla and / or Mohammed Ali Road during Ramzan has become an annual feature for me.

Owing to the sentiments of the zone, i have always worn clothes which have covered me neck down, full sleeves et all. I never went alone. Always ensured i dragged a specimen of the male specie with  me. Sometimes even two or three. At the back of my mind i knew that, its festive and fasting season. There shall be no problems, the kinds a girl is normally worried about. Yet when i saw cops stationed at every few kilometers, it put me at ease.

In keeping with my own tradition, i visited Bori Mohalla and Mohammed Ali Road yesterday with a few friends. We were hungry and excited at the prospect of good food!! Kebabs, barah handi, phirni, malpua..... mmm.... We began our excursion at the stalls of Bori Mohalla. I was relishing the fragrance of good food floating in the air, flooding my system. The kebabs came and just while i was about to lunge at the plate, something disturbing flashed across my eyes. But what? It didn't register.

After a couple of other stalls, salivating and stuffing ourselves with some more meat, i felt the same pit in my stomach. This time i looked around slowly, trying to put a finger on what was bothering me. And then i saw and it dawned. In addition to cops, who were a regular feature, there were uniformed personnel at every few kilometers. They were either BSF or army, i cant tell. Their presence disturbed me. It meant that there could be trouble. Trouble far bigger and greater than a grope or a pocket being picked. Trouble, the kind where in a second, lives can be lost, laughter can turn to screams of horror or absolute silence. There would still be meat burning, but of a different kind......

The security aroused in me, fear..... Isn't that what it was meant to dispel.....???

I was getting tired and lonely, then i found a hand to hold on this lonesme path

Yes, Mumbai has been sucker punched again. As much by its own as by the bastards who routinely put bombs in crowded places.

by Uday Mali on Thursday, July 14, 2011 at 2:22pm

Yes, Mumbai has been sucker punched again. As much by its own as by the bastards who
routinely put bombs in crowded places. (by Sumit Bhattacharya @ www.rediff.com)

'I don't get it,' wrote a friend, who is in his early thirties, on his Facebook status message a couple of weeks ago. 'Why can't we be out on the streets at night without the cops having to tell us to leave? Isn't it their jobs to keep the streets safe so we can be out no matter what the time?'

I think you will agree that it just about sums up the relationship most of India shares with its police force. For sure in Mumbai, the great city once again bleeding from another terrorist attack.

The Mumbai police had initially declared the terrorist siege of November 2008 as a gang war. Even in Wednesday's serial blasts, till an hour after people were frantically trying to get through loved ones on suddenly jammed phone networks, the brave Mumbai police was busy describing the explosions as an air-conditioner blast and an electricity repair job gone wrong.

These are the same men who can drag you to a police station because the bar you were drinking at is not authorised to serve alcohol. If you ask why the bar is up and running, and why aren't the owners being arrested and how were you to know, your questions will fall on deaf ears till you call up someone high up.

This is the same police force that has had great success busting rave parties -- even those held in remote jungle areas -- and at catching kids 'dirty-dancing' in pubs.

This is the same city where hired gunmen kill fearless reporters in the day time.

This is Mumbai, Maharashtra, where the police use the Official Secrets Act to arrest a journalist who exposes how sophisticated weapons bought after 26/11 for the modernisation of the police force are going bad in godowns that can't keep the rains off.

Perhaps it can only happen in this city, where Adarsh is a joke. A city where unreal estate prices are pushed further up every day even as builders destroy state forests and ecologically crucial mangrove clusters.

Where eyesores called skywalks are built for billions and then marked to be torn down for the metro rail project's phase two. Where billions of rupees are spent on beautifying posh Marine Drive while the teeming middle class braves packed beyond capacity trains and nightmare -- nay, nightmares are shorter -- traffic from the unplanned suburbs.

Mumbai, where some of the world's richest men live. Mumbai, which has the worst roads among India's metros.

Mumbai, which mirrors New York -- down to earmuffs despite a nonexistent winter -- in fashion. Where PhD holders think of their out of state colleagues as migrant labourers. Where you can be denied a pigeonhole on rent because of your religion, your food preference, or your marital status.

The city of private paradises and public hell. Where frightening armoured cars now pass you by if you want to catch a late night kebab at Bade Miyan in Colaba.

Mumbai, which makes dreams come true. Mumbai, that must pay the price. Where pigeons flying helter-skelter means a bomb blast, or a gunshot. Where images of blood on the streets always seems like a rerun.

Mumbai, that must go to work the next day, no matter what.

Wading through dirty water when the rains routinely make a mockery of the municipal corporation's annual monsoon preparedness. Wading through debris when terrorists routinely make a mockery of the police's perpetual preparedness.
Wading through traffic pileups caused by political rallies.

Yes, Mumbai has been sucker punched again. As much by its own as by the bastards who routinely put bombs in crowded places, police nakabandis -- the Mumbaiyya term for street checks -- be damned.

Yes, Mumbai will get back up and trudge back to work, uncomfortably numb. Not for its famed resilience, but simply to survive.

Have i become a crib crab?

Yesterday, a friend commented that i've turned into a cribber. All i do on fcaebook or here is crib about what the city has turned into. My efforts to argue that, i am complaining because i know we deserve better and we can get it, were all in vain. I was even told that i havent been forced to stay here. I should leave the city or country if i dont like things here.

Instead of letting the evening with friends turn nasty, i posed a question. Tell me one thing with respect to which you have seen improvement in the city in the last 10 years (and pls don't say bollywood) That was where the discussion stopped.

But the comment kept nagging me at the back of my mind. And i now want to pose this question to an open forum:

              "Tell me one thing with respect to which you have seen improvement in the city in the last 10 years?"

Lets try and find something to praise about our city. Traffic, security, infrastructure, business, education..... any sphere. A comparison with the other metros would be even better, if you could do that. Have i missed out something about the growth of the city that others have seen?

Brick by brick....

Today's newspapers said that the Municipal Comissioner is actually under pressure to cancel the tenders issued in  favour of the tainted contractors. The board opposite the Mantralay has also come down.

On television they showed how Anna's burning of the Jokpal Bill was applauded and supported by 67% of the citizens. My back also feels better :-)

In a completely disconnected conversation, someone said that the BMC Building and Repair Board has directions to go strictly by the rules and give no concessions of any sort for any project, no matter where the file comes from.

I know i am not the cause for any of those, yet somehow i feel a sense of pride, a fulfilment of some sort. I am certain you do too! May be it is because we see the light at the end of the tunnel. May be coz it is the begining of the end. End of unbridled corruption in every sphere of our life. 

This is only the first of the baby steps. Hopefully we will be able to re-build our city of dreams. As someone said 'brick by brick'. I am an optimist and i would like to believe we shall live to see that day.... 

Respected Mr. CM, You already have a brain dead state. Are you looking for a physically immobile one as well??

Courtesy Rohini Behl and Shahid Basheer

Respected Mr. CM,

You already have a brain dead state. Are you looking for a physically immobile one as well??

Your party and all others have over the years made the citizens of this once upon a time live and hopeful city 'dead'. Dead, coz it has lost its faith, conscience, the verve and energy. Dead because you and yours have successfully shattered its dreams and aspirations. The middle class educated population, tax paying people could not be bothered during elections. For them it s a choice between a holiday and a day to elect the devil or the deep sea. Which of course suits all parties. Then they get illiterates by truck loads who are drunk or smoked and elections are won!

Now that you have a brain dead state, (which all parties milk to the last drop), you will not stop, will you? You are anxious to get people maimed or killed. There are attacks after attacks on the city. what do you do? Form committees and .....?

How many reports have you seen of potholes on the roads of the city, including the flyover you inaugurated. What have you done? Do u know the count of the people who have broken their backs (including me) owing to the potholed city?

Are you aware of the number of people who have lost their limbs thanks to the unconcerned attitude of the authorities. Dumpers driving over people, railway stations and railways have become the messengers of death. First it was blinding commuters with stones and now it is crushing them under trains coz of the banana peel which the conservancy staff did not clean? Have you forgotten that misery of the lady who could not use a washroom at a station when she was most in need of and had to be hospitalized for lack of sanitation at stations??

What are you doing to this city??? But actually, why am i complaining of such distant issues!! You seem to be as blind as the citizens you are trying to disfigure. Right under your nose, this huge hoarding across the main road opposite Mantralaya, from Friday last week till yesterday that i know of.  (see pic above) All despite your circular of no illegal hoardings!! Is this hoarding legal?? It does not seem to bear the requisite permissions displayed on it!!

Mr. C. M. Sir, will i get a response ever? When will we get what we truly deserve??