Priorities

” .. From April to September this year, 122 conservancy workers (safai kamagar) died, as per the statistics provided by solid waste management department of Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM).
This information, obtained by activist Keval Semlani under Right To Information Act, was furnished to the Bombay High Court, which is hearing a suo motu PIL based on newspaper reports and a letter written by Semlani on high mortality rate among these workers.

Between April 2006 and March 2007, 247 conservance workers had died.

Semlani moved an application before a Division Bench of Justices J N Patel and Nishita Mhatre to convert the PIL into a criminal writ petition, saying the statistics showed MCGM was guilty of “criminal negligence.”

It has been his case that deaths occur due to unsafe working conditions, and inadequate safety gear .. “

Article in Indopia

What has the reaction been in the venerable MCGM ? The Clean-Up Mumbai campaign has its priorities in a strange order. The first thing it did is “rebrand” garbage. Make it cool to look at and talk about. Then it made its garbage collection vehicles looks “cool”. The only problem with that is that most of the silly orange stickers that read “Clean-Up!” have since peeled off. Only recently – more than a year since the campaign began – have the conservancy workers been given neat orange clothes to wear to match the stickers on the vehicles.

But guess what ! No safety gear yet ! In this ‘world city’ growing by ‘leaps and bounds’, human beings still collect garbage with their bare hands, and walk barefoot over piles of rubbish. Somewhere, something is seriously wrong.

How to win the next election

The next poll plank for the general elections in India IS Hindutva. There should be no confusion among the BJP and its allies on that front. The mood of the average Hindu is searing, fast-spreading anger. And events seem to be falling in place to both support their cause, and prove its resonance with the masses. Very few Maharashtrians seem to think that Raj Thackeray needs to shut up and stop acting like a buffoon. They need a protector. The Orissa and Bangalore incidents of violence against Christians is also being viewed from a perspective of self-defence. And today, Modi has been forgiven his crimes.

With the world economy like it is, development seems to be a shaky platform. The Hindu nation needs a protector that can slaughter anyone that rises to threaten its shaky sense of well being. India has always been a nation full of self doubt, and one of the nations that was (is) the most self-critical to the point of discarding all sense of honour in its perception of self. This rising Hindu sense of wanting to stand up for itself – or wanting someone to stand up for itself – though not new, is at the other extreme point of view. We seem to have missed the middle ground of a healthy self image, that is nudged and shaken into position by a sharply self critical attitude.

So, any BJP / Sena supporter reading this, tell your boss its that time again. Reap your votes while you can. We will only pay for it six and seven years down the line when the retribution surfaces. We have forgotten Gujarat and Ayodhya. Lets hope every new bomb blast helps us to never forget. And hopefully never repeat it.

Details

The new bus shelters springing up around the city of Mumbai are apparently being built by the Times Out Of Home (OOH) division. The existing bus shelters badly needed to be redeveloped, and with the OOH industry being perceived as flavour of the season, an appropriately expensive bus shelter design has been offered by the Times group, with the rights to sell advertising space on them. Which is not so bad.

The quibble is in the detail. A couple of earlier bus shelters had well finished stainless steel fittings with rounded edges, and a nice buffed (matt) finish to the metal. This must have proved to be just a little costly to the diamond merchants who run the Times Group. With a possibly little elbowing, they have managed to slip through the newer shelters that have ghastly sharp edges, and an extremely unattractive glossy surface finish that has also lesser longevity.

When we build public amenities, what is the time span that we consider? Is it break-even period, or something more? Today the grand daddy of the wonderful Delhi Metro, Sreedharan is in the news for raising his voice against the model of private participation being followed in the Metro projects in Mumbai and Hyderabad. PPP is usually just a convenient escape route for government agencies wanting to avoid getting their hands dirty, but keeping their palms greased either way. It is illogical to think that a privately owned entity would keep the best interests of a ‘general public’ at the heart of its decisions.

That is solely within the purview of a people’s body. We have them. We need to make them work.

White House Idol

Though this blog usually deals with India, and more specifically has been dealing with the city of Mumbai, some things make us peek out. Barack Obama  is running scared – he has found his nemesis; someone who has also exposed the greatest reason for his recent success. Palin – that bloated, aged Angelina Jolie is more ‘appealing’ than the serious looking Barack. You know he might make a clever pass at you but Palin would go the WHOLE way. And boy, what a jolly romp it would be.

So let it be known – the American  Presidential elections are not about a particular job of leading a nation. It’s not about money, oil, or running the world. It is a test of popularity – a contest for celebrity. Just another race for popular vote, and a big prize, five years running, at the end of it. As a part – Muslim, part- Afro American, Obama has had his time as popular oddity. Now the nation shows that what it would like is just the status quo – with some cheese.  What Obama really needs now is something dramatic. Since its not likely that he can break water and make a speech, maybe he should try rapping.

What brings you here?

The Thackerays have a history of firing after soft targets. The principal reason why Mumbai is not going to face any communal rioting soon are the rumours (maybe true) that the Muslims in their Mumbai ghettoes are armed to their teeth – with grenades and rifles – and will fight back whenever necessary. All that the ‘Sena’ have are loudmouths, the strength of numbers, and the odd ‘talwaar’ and ‘koita’. So the Thackerays have made a silent withdrawal from their virulent anti-Muslim line. and started hunting around for newer scapegoats. The North Indians seem easy targets now.

Ordinary Maharashtrians seem to be lapping up the line of ‘outsiders’ having to ‘do something for the city’. Why should anyone do anything for the city? Everyone – Maharashtrian, Gujarati, Bangladeshi and Bihari alike have all flocked to the city to make a life for themselves. No one is here to make the city a better place. So why is it obligatory only on non-Maharashtrians to do something for the city to validate their being there? In every large city of India, the local population are little more than fat, lazy, pompous twits that expect to be fed their rights to the city on a platter. Mumbai’s Maharashtrians are no better. And that is one of the foremost reasons to find Maharashtrians among the least successful communities in Mumbai. Let it be mandatory for anyone who has done well in the city then, to give something back. Not only those who are not originally born here – all of them; to give a part back of what they gained in this city – not only to it’s ‘locals’, but to its entire populace.

Calling Ganesha

Making Ganesh images and idols out of curious assortments is quite a craze; butter, chocolate, chalk and cheese are passe. The Tata Indicomm posters use an assemblage of their own logo of blue and yellow rings to form an abstract representation of the dear Elephant Lord. Why isn’t anyone burning their offices down? It is in full public view – not hidden in an obscure gallery; it is a Parsi conglomerate, not some dandy Muslim painter. Give it to them ‘gaon che muley’, show them you aren’t ‘pseudo-secular’ like the rest of us. Or maybe you are. The images of the girl’s face sniffing her bottle of Manikchand Drinking Water on the posters are several times larger than the idols in the ‘pandal’ inside. Out of 330 million Gods, I’m sure we can afford to choose the highest bidder.

New Tadpoles in the Swamp

One of the great ugly toads of Maharashtrian politics, Narayan Rane, has spawned two tadpoles as ugly as himself. They are all up on the posters greeting Ganesh revellers with sleepy looks. They think they can be as cool as the National College crowd that always look sleepy. Maybe they are; National Collegians were never known to be anywhere near cool – but more likely it is a case of the wily Rane creating new ‘khaatas’ or accounts for his shady deals. I have nothing against Narayan Rane. He is equally worthy of my hate as a vast majority of our politicians. Its just that he pushes the envelope on slime.

Ganeshji .. Tell them to shut up

The surest sign of a degenerating culture is the amount of noise – absolute – with no sense of rythmn, plain utter boring beats that I have been hearing since I was seven, and disgraceful dancing that occurs on what is proudly called our most secular of festivals, for our most universal of Gods. The noise increases every year, and the utter shamelessness with which the ‘pandals’ – enclosures for the idol, are decorated with advertisements and cutouts dwarfing the idol itself makes me cringe. There is no room left for Ganesh in this festival. It is as loud as a reality show, and almost as meaningless. Its high time we started keeping God to ourselves and stop blocking roads with his inflated likenesses.