What is it going to take to have a Clean Bombay?

warrierji, in my defense, i was a good bambaiyya but then i did my stint in up where i got introduced to the parallel universe of pan eating (the joda with pili-patti and kali-patti..). now when i go to bambai, i feel more like a bhaiyya than bambaiyya. i heard about the no spitting ordanance which was enacted a few years back and initially i was a little nervous..so on my recent visit, i stood chatting next to a cop doing ``bandobast`` because some VIP was going from airport to mantralay and let out a nice spit (offcourse into a gutter). he seemed oblivious to my spittting..perhaps he was distracted by the gajrewali sitting at the corner.

overall, i am willing to give-up spitting in the spirit of civic support, if bambai has no emmisions, does not smell of raw sewage (as it does these days even in some plush town areas) and has public toilets which dont need a scuba machine to avoid fainting from ammonia...no need to beat me up.

Re: # 93
Jango
We`ll start with the spit and go downwards from there ....whaddya say.. -)
Remember the old DD cartoon ``Skin in the bin``.

Muqaddam,

If my house plan needs approval I wud pay the bribe as anybody does to get it approved. Wont you do that? As a matter of principle I wud exhaust all other avenues b4 submiting to the biggie? Btw city`s dirt and muck is the problem not the corruption in the Corporation.

It`s not that the city was short of sweepers but the shortage of will. Honeslty we dont have
enough bins in downtown Bombay. Do we? In the absence of bins people are encouraged to throw rubbish on the roads. It horrifying the people who eat bananas in train &s throw the peels straight on the edge of plaform. I do personally remove them myself whenever I see them coz any guy in a hurry running to catch his train wud slip btw the gap of the train and platform i.e violent death! I learnt these lessons from an anonymous army man in a train. The army man gave a long lecture to the errant pasenger who threw all the orange peels in the train itself.

How do u recycle waste? Of course we cant implement the scientific procedures of Germany but we can use the business acumen of Marawri and Gujarati baniyas to use the gigantic Bombay waste to generate electricity a la the city of London or atleast the city of Hyderabad (Deccan).

A joke: Ur acusation reminds me of my grand dad`s parable of an young man who got angry with the canal and didnt wash his bum after answering nature call. Who`s the loser? Young man or the canal?? ;-)

The posters of #63 and #75 will be the first ones to lay prostate before the local SS biggie if they want a job to be done in the Corporation.

Is it coincidence or mandarins take Chowk seriously? We need to check this and Ajay must be a happy man to see this.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/NEWS/The_day_in_pics_March_10/articleshow/msid-1745821,curpg-2.cms

/////FOR A CAUSE: BMC runs a clean drive in Mumbai, where the one who is found littering would be asked to clean it up by his own and would also be fined./////

Re: # 78

This will work if the people collecting the fines don`t take bribes. If these guys work like pandus at traffic signals in the city then they may just take 100 rupees and let the person go.

http://www.mumbaimirror.com/net/mmpaper.aspx?Page=article§id=15&contentid=200703090244177835d58ca1

Wonder if this will help!!!!!

Dear Author!

The Shiv Sena is good for nothing. Do you know that for two days before the train blasts their goondas held the city to ransom because someone desecrated Thackerey`s wife`s statue? The police attention was totally on them when the terrorists were planting the bombs.

My alternative is that localities have their own waste-management set-up and ignore the BMC.

I am from Calcutta and have been living in Bombay for the last 6 years. My observation is that Bombay is much cleaner on average than it was a few years back. There is a growing number of well-kept pockets in the city. Like someone said, the mallwala-politican nexus is also helping the city get cleaner.

I agree with the author about the littering culture of the middle class. A new motorcycle TV ad shows someone tearing up a letter (meant to be sent to America) and throwing the pieces of the paper on the road. Such behaviour is condoned.

Re: Toilets

People from villages that defecate in open air will do the same in Bombay. We are talking about penniless migrants with no education. The city is a magnet to such types. As long as Bombay is a money centre you will get such migrants.

NB

I prefer the spirit, hard-working nature and sense of fairness that Bombay has to the utopia that many people think they have in Calcutta.

Re: # 74
I don`t agree, but this article is about cleanliness, and I will not go off topic.

dear NB, the jhuggis outside mahim station are GONE in a road-widening operation (on old tulsi-pipe road). these jhuggis were very interesting, they over time were offering various services or men and women and would throw themselves in front of a car and feign injury to extort money. now i suspect walking on that path will be boring i suspect.

some ``cleanup`` of aamchi-mumbai is happening thanks to the builder-mallwalla lobby. i was surprized that i was able to walk comfortably on a sidewalk outside Dadar station. It felt really strange, and i could not put my finger on it. Then i saw this glittering mall in place of an old movie theatre mostly catering to vegetable vendors. Apperently the mall guys brought enough influence-bribes to bear on police and municipal dudes to drive away street-vendors on the sidewalk (or footpath as its called there). there was a private security guard with a walkie-talkie watching out for any vendor attempting to set-shop to inform muscle immediately. mallwallas also keep these guards in night to protect their turf.

the vendors are not completely gone..they mill around now with brochures in their hand enquring..saar, you want trolly bag cheap..much better than the mall sar..american tourister asali maal saar.

then there is some natural adjustment..one hijra bhaiyya was complained of high cost of living in bombay and was conteplating moving to aurangabad.

#52 now you are getting real irritating...for the record, i ALWAYS spit my paan in the gutter or nalla. enough with your silly convent-educated discomfort at our national culture and pasttime, or i will get real angry. i argue that your automobile-induced pollution and waste from its old tires is far more hazardous than my perfectly bio-degradable pan-spittle (angry wala icon).

The comparison btw Calcutta and Bombay is not good. Calcutta was the numero uno in pre-47 India but Bombay replaced Calcutta as the magnet of Indian peoples. Calcutta is still a Bengali city whereas Bombay - despite the high-phase of Marathi chavs - is a pan-Indian city. In the meanwhile Pune was developed as San Jose of Bombay which is quiet, feel-good city.

We shud take the influx of migrants as given, including the fortune seeking rural folk who`d like to see the glitter of the megapolis. We cant question that. If we remember even Amitabh Bachchan slept on the footpaths of Marine Drive for days b4 he found someplace to sleep. Like all he too enjoyed the the view of the golden city.

When I last saw Calcutta, it had still the smoke belching 1970-buses on its roads. Taxis are no different; almost run by Biharis. The most shaming relic of the Raj-era is the hand-pulled rickshaws. The footpaths of the downtown Calcutta are swmaped by food-vendors during lucnh hours who sell foods of Bihar, Bengal, North India, Punjabi & Southern all 4 less than Rs. 10! Even people from big offices eat food from footpaths.

We have police in white dress who are very sober (may be my misconception). We have a placard selling shop in Park Street (paying huge rent to sell placards? Unless there`re big bucks they cant maintain a shop in Park Street. So sloganbajee is the major pastime of Calcuttans). We see impropmtu meetings of employee leaders during luch-breaks who talk abt imperialism, Coca Cola and link these things/companies to their plight! The gatherings cud be as low as 4-5 people! We have India Musuem with priceless artefacts with almost no visitors from other parts of India. We see people taking baths on footpaths. They still use Lifebuoy bath soap and use Sunlight for washing clothes (relics of old Indian consumer items). I can see Calcutta as London occupied by subaltern Bengalis and Biharis .

Bombay on the other hand is thriving with Gujarati businessmen contributing seamlessly to the social and business life of the city. (One interactor reeled out the contribution of Bombay to the revenues of India). Marathis and south Indians are good clerks and managers. Whereas Bengalis are very good executives but they have bad clerks. Despite all the shortcomings as a city with many balck spots, Bombay is still the India`s international city.

Intolerance and Shiv Sena spoiled the liberal name of Bombay. Marathi chavs can make it better if they think thet Bombay is the Indian city than it`s a Marathi city. Some years back the snaps of Shiv Sena pricks bashing the Biharis who came to write exams for railway jobs. Shiv Sena was as usual proved to be a kameena kutteys.

Even the mainstream Marathis made a change that`s simple but significant in terms of the outlook. I dont think it`s Shiv Sena behind this. The Bombay police use to have a yellow band on the caps of police. Now it`s replcaed by saffron bands indicating the change of outlook. This change is part of saffronisation of Bombay police. The Marathi backward journey is official. As I said, despite all this, Bombay is still the pan-Indian city.

I was in Kolkata in Nov 06. I stayed near my old home (near MG Rd metro station). I visited Bhawanipore. I came by train so I saw Howrah Station. None of these places have changed form what they were in 89 when I left Kolkata. I would not say Kolkata is any cleaner than Mumbai.

Internal passport may not be possible but some kind of anti-vagrancy laws should be there. In Mumbai autorickshaws are not permitted south of Bandra. People do not see such restriction as unreasonable. I do not see why anti-vagrancy laws cannot be enacted. Such laws may be already there. May be these needs to applied strictly. Defecating in public places should be punishable by RI.

Re: # 53
I`m sorry but the long line of people defecating with the backs to the train seems almost unique..in other cities people at least try to hide. The streets of Dharavi at 5:30 am are occupied by people squatting in long lines on either side of the road while the rest of the world acts like nothing is happening. When did you see that in Delhi or Calcutta?