Bombay

What happened to Bombay last week was incomprehensible. Was it just incessant rains that did that?Or is there a larger story?

I am not a mumbaite myself. But I have some connections with that city. For the starters most of my mother's side relatives stay there, and we being a pretty close family, I spent a lot of my child hood vacations in what used to be 'Bombay'. Also I worked in Bombay for around 4 years so was pretty much a part and parcel of the system.

My wife is from Bombay. So that makes the full circle and makes Bombay almost my second home. But I carry mixed feelings about this great city. Its not my favourite but I feel like admiring and appreciating a lot of things about this city.

If you really ask me Bombay is the only truly cosmopolitan metropolis of India. Rest all the so called Metros are merely overgrown villages. There's no city till date in India which can compare Mumbai's professionalism.

Hence it is sad to see the state of this city today, which fills the nations revenue coffers with 40% share, in such shambles.
One can go on and on blaming governments and system for Bombay's plights. But aren't the real mumbaikars themselves to blame for this? Haven't they voted the wrong people again and again? Aren't the people who did not vote at all in all these
elections equally to blame?

The BJP-Sena government ruled Maharashtra for only 5 years. But what they gave Bombay was priceless.Imagine, had it not been for the initiative taken by the dynamic PWD minister Nitin Gadkari during their rule, would we have seen Bandra-Borivili connected so well? Would we have seen those innumerable number of flyovers which now hang over the city landscape and which in effect removed so many traffic bottle necks.

Lot of anti-Sena people will argue that it was the previous Congress governments plan. The hard fact is, it requires political will and foresight to carry out such major investments in infrastructure,and not just plans on paper.
Sadly the anti-BJP media never focused on this achievement of that government and far more tragic is the fact that the same mumbaikars who should have been thankful to this government, voted them out.

With Congress back in the game its back to square one.

(I seriously feel that were it not for improved roads on the western express highway, the situation in Mumbai would have been far worse today.Bombay should atleast thank Gadkari for that)

For a city which is now (somehow) sustaining a population of more than 1.5 crores the real issue is not these rains. The real issue is unchecked immigration to this city and its effects on city's already stressed infrastructure. Again here the
mumbaikars have failed to come together and support the leader who was ready to stick his neck out and give a call against Immigrants.

His name happens to be Bal Thackray. Sadly not many Mumbaikars (including Maharashtrians) have come out in his support on this issue.

Mumbaikars take great pride in their resilience. But this very trait of Mumbaikars is today costing this great city bad.If all the Mumbaikars unite and take a stand against immigration there's a possibility of some salvage even now.

Its Utter Pradesh's problem that it does not have enough jobs. Its not Bombay's problem that Bihar cannot sustain itself economically. Its not Bombay's problem that West Bengal has 70% industrial units declared sick.If Bombayites do not realise this now, it will be too late.

I fear that a lot of good families who really value quality and honest life will be leaving this city in coming days. Unfortunately they will also take away the productivity and skills along with them. The lifeline of Bombay.

It would be foolish to write off this great city so soon. But surely the decay has set in. Its not of question of 'will this happen' but now its a question of only 'when will this happen'. I give Bombay two decades tops.

I mean off course people will be staying there and all that. But by then it would have lost its prime position as India's commercial capital. I think the economic's weight is shifting southwards.

The Chalta Hai attitude is going to kill this booming region. You get a feeling that something is not right with Bombay when you see that an honest man like Ram Naik is voted out for a non-serious entity like Govinda.
You realise that future is not safe when Underworld is all over real estate and bollywood and ready to strike in more lucrative businesses anytime.

The hijack of Bombay has begun. The pseudo-intellects who speak for and on behalf of Bombay have got it all wrong when they blame everything on Shiv Sena. No, Shiv Sena is not a problem. If at all, today it's Bombay's only hope.