Dear friends, I do not want to add to the comments shared by my friends. They are really good enough to wake up the whole India, not only Mumbai. It is the personal responsibility and thinking-pattern that will change India. We have to change the way of thinking. Each person,citizen or even people in power and responsibility have to think differently from now on. As Indian citizen everybody has to something to offer. Then, India is now far from the rest of the world in any aspect. Thanks. Praful.
Let's face it. For years, we have lived through one of the most incredible act of nature. Act of nature, because, nowhere else in the civilised world have so many people earned so much, learned so much, and gone on to rise in life, without doing as little as all of us in Mumbai have.
Thus, it is only in Mumbai that a man can delight in the steadily appreciating value of his house for no rhyme or reason, and consequently, shut his eyes to the steadily rising hell around him. We have learnt to see a positive in just about everything. Anything to avoid contributing our time and effort, you see. Thus, when people start living in shanties not too far away from our house, we take it, since it becomes a new supply of domestic help, and keeps the wages down. When an illegal store opens opens up, we bear it, doesn't it make life a little bit more convenient now?
Or when a car garage comes up close by, which releases all its effluents untreated, we close our eyes to the environmental damage, after all, now we have a mechanic too nearby!
Slowly we have lost all sense of civilised, planned living, only looking at everything from the prism of utility. For that we are suffering today.
In my openion nobody should be blamed other than ourself.The population is increasind day by day and putting pressure on the infrastructure which ends as like this . It is very easy and right also to blame the civic authorities for their failure but the end point is we should take lesson from this . If the rate of migration from Villages to Cities will be like this these all are bound to happen. Nature gives every body time to improve there self but if we start playing with the nature all these will happen.
First of all, I strongly disagree with the title that blames Mumbaites for the situation. It is true that our local governence has been very poor but there is no way poor Mumbaites can be blamed for all the troubles. Like the article says that Mumbai has become the dirtest city in India even topping Calcutta. This is not becuse Mumbaites have suddenly developed unhygenic habits or have developed unhealthy lifestyles. Infact, Mumbai has grown far more than it could possibly dream and more than any any metro in this country thereby attracting millions from all over the country. Hence the problems of huge slums and incovenience to regular mumbaites living in the city. Without Mumbai which is India's economy engine, India would fare even worse than Pakistan and Sri Lanka. The sucess of Mumbai's economic might which is incressingly recognised not only in India but the whole world is only due to its people. Compared to all other cities in India, Mumbaites are one of the hardest working communities braving rush hours traffics and all the hardships ranging from higher taxes, higher prices of all comodities,etc. Working for 12 hours a day is the standard norm for average mumbaikar.
RE:Response to the article ''Mumbaites are equally to blame''
by ash on Aug 10, 2005 07:22 PM Permalink
Hey Anand, May b ur wirte..... but who is creating dirt in mumbai??people like u and me ....u have only seen the negative part of mumbai visit again and see how mumbai is feeding to thousand and thousands people.
easy to blame man but very difficult to solve the problem isnt it ?
Only mumbai can stand again in just 48 hours ...... not even London or any other city in the world.
we dont want u to come to mumbai again !!!!!!!!!!!!
Mumbai has remained the same over the decades. Only thing that has changes is the count of people living in it. I still remember the infrastructure I had seen couple of years back. And when i visited the city lately, I had seen no visible changes. Still full of dirt, make it hard to walk down the streets.
It is time to sit and realise that the city of dreams is transforming into city of problems.
Everyone seems to shift the blame to the common people. They say that lack of initiativeness, responsibility and educational awareness are several key features on the basis of which they should be criticized for what they term as political irresponsibility in case of disasters.
My take on this issue is that we need to work on several basic systems which constitute our society. The important ones are:
1. Legal System - As a common person, i feel that people dont trust the legal system we have today.
2. Education - It has become an industry nowadays with a race to earn money through this social necessity.
3. Health Care - Just had a look on the Doctor's fees and the kind of service they provide. I personally feel that the medical stream has become a liability to the human society today.
4. Public Distribution System - Give me an example of ten cities in India, where its fulfilling the requirements perceived by the common people.
5. Accountability of Public Servants - It scores quite low.
6. Tax collection - Lots of people are paying the taxes for the services which they never get.
Its continous failure for which the policy makers/implementors are responsible.
We, the ordinary commoners of mumbai, must take the calamity with a positive spirit. Let us learn from the last week's lesson. Compassion & understanding are in need today. Let us clean the slums, drains, roads instead of wasting time in blaming some weaker sections our own people.
we do not have control over the nature and therefore we cannot control the happennings of earthquakes,floods, and tsunamies. what we can control is the extent of damage caused, by properly planning and building good infrastructure in each and every city and not just mumbai beacuase it is the basic need to make the india a developed nation. And for this development we are paying crores of ruppes to govt as tax and continue to do so while we all know that these money just go into the pockets of thse greedy politician whose greed seems to never end even after swallowing crores and crores of ruppes. so i want to ask evry tax payer citizen of india, why should we pay taxes? let us start a non tax payment movement so teach a lesson to these politicians.it is time that we grow up and forget our differences and unite under one cause to make india a developed nation. And please don't think that our gandhiji will take again a avtar and will come to fight on behalf of us because he was one of us ordinery people. if this time again we forget everything and do not fight for our rights then we can never. better make our life counted than losing it in calamities. let us fight for better future.
I agree with Jagat and others when they say stop blaming and learn from the incidents of last week.
1. I hope the government can now speed up its slum rehab plan. Can we check with Ms Medha Patkar now...She championed for slums and now what? Most of the severly affected areas are slums.
2. Can people staying at SakiNaka complain...Most of them are living in unauthorised colonies and have bribed their way to live there. You reap what you sow.
3. Do people in gerenal have any sense for a clean surrounding. Mumbai is an amazing city...People will carry a 5 kg office bag but cant carry the weiht of a bus ticket...they throw it on the road as soon as they leave the bus.
4. BMC should be taken to courts for its claims this year. Suggestion - cleaning of drains should be the responsibility of Mohalla committees with BMC being the specialist or the labour provider. Once the area is cleaned, the BMC team should take signatures from local residents.
5. Slums near the Airport are a danger anyway. Where is Kripa Shanker Singh now...was he able to stop the airport wall from comign down. Its appalling to note that today we can see the runway fromt the road.
