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

Re: # 59
Why envy? Or hatred? I don`t like Bombay, but hate is a strong word. I don`t feel that strongly about Bombay. I cannot stand filth, and I will not apologise for that. I don`t have any reason to feel envious!
But this is what I mean, this is typical if there is any criticism of Bombay`s dirt, you immediately attack the person making the criticism and talk about how it is cleaner than every other city in India. It is surprising that you would write an article on Bombay not being clean and then object when other people say the same thing. Before knocking other cities, you probably need to check them out. I don`t see it as my place to find a solution where dozens of civic, state and union governments have failed, because I do not know a way to change the way the people of Bomaby think.

Re: # 62
I find even that hard because there has been movement between East and West Bengal for thousands of years, and people do not stop just because there is a border. On the other hand, I still believe in passports and visas, and it annoys me that the Left Front encourages illegals for their own gains. Of course Calcutta is dirty, did I ever say it wasn`t? Iron mask, who are you, may I ask?

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.

Re: # 49
nb

[This is exactly why Bombay never improves-people there still think they have the best deal in the country and therefore they don`t need to improve]

This is your statement.

[No one thinks it shouldn`t improve] is mine. Do you have problems with reading or comprehension?

So you think there is a lack of civic and political will. I agree. Nobody is questioning that. I don`t know which Bombay you lived in but most Bombayites that I know do agree its dirty.

But you don`t seem to read other bits that I posted. It isn`t that easy to do things in a small area with a large population. Migration to cities is never planned in the 3rd world. It happens. And politicians are the last people to worry about planning in India.

You can blame the city and the people who live there as part of the problem and no doubt they are but few people have the energy to go out and do something after travelling and working the better part of the day.

So lets take the issue of toilets for maids etc. Take my area of Ville-Parle. Our maids used to live in a small chawl that had a common set of toilets for the people there. Time went on. In the 70`s there was a whole bunch of rag-pickers who came to the Western Express Highway area and settled there. They didn`t have toilets. They didn`t have jobs except for rag picking. So what did you expect the citizens around there to do. Build toilets for them? Would they do anything with the toilets. Have you lived in villages in India nb? People don`t have toilets there either and they go out into the fields. The ragpickers, construction workers etc come from those villages and all the drains in Bombay are the fields for them. There isn`t anywhere else to go and after some time you lose all sense of shame. To put it crudely ``When you gotta go , you gotta go?``

I cannot comment on the middle classes of other cities but the people in Bombay do not have the time and energy to invest in this because most of them are dead beat when they come home. That is why Calcutta and Delhi do not contribute to the national exchequer the way Bombay does. Perhaps that is why the middle class in those cities have time to build toilets, clean the streets and Oh, I forgot a government that is willing to keep the capital city clean and perhaps a government that made Calcutta the economic powerhouse it is today so that it could pay for its metro.

But the poor middle class in Bombay depend on the people they elect to office , who of course fail them. Even there the middle classes are out voted because there isn`t even enough of them. The poor are far more and they will vote for anybody who pays them money, not for those who will build them toilets.

These are not excuses these are facts. Incidentally where are you going to construct toilets for all the slum dwellers in Bombay? I`m afraid the middle class does not have money to buy the few pieces of land left. Been bought up by the politicians and criminals y`know.

I`m not saying people are not apathetic but Bombay has a large migrant population that couldn`t care less about the city and most of them are poor and some don`t care a great deal about cleanliness.

Did you clean the toilets in the public hospital where you were a doctor? Before or after use? If you did I admire and respect you. If you didn`t then you were part of the problem like the rest of us you talked about, because it wasn`t your job.

Re: # 65

I wrote this article looking for solutions and constructive criticism. You have just stated that you are incapable of thinking of or suggesting both. I guess that`s fine.

Re: # 68

Excellent Post.

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.

Re: # 69
That`s right, get angry because I don`t agree with you! You have written a very ordinary article and not come up with any real ideas yourself, except setting fascists on the general population, which reveals your thinking. What other solutions have been suggested here? I can`t see any. I think the problem is with a lack of civic pride and a complete lack of accomodation for the poor. I don`t think there`s money in that, so no one will fix it, because the middle classes really don`t care. I have not stated I am incapable of thinking, just that I do not agree with you. You have accused me of being envious and turned the argument personal. I do not miss the dirty roads and beaches and polluted air; perhaps you do. If Bombay was worth envying, you would live there yourself.

Re: # 72

Thank You NB

You have helped me see the silver lining in the cloud. At least the filth drove away people like you from Bombay. The city is all the better for it.

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.

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.

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

Wonder if this will help!!!!!

Re: # 72
nb
You are not a Bombayite so you don`t have to be responsible for the dirt , the beaches and the polluted air (though I daresay Delhi and Bangalore may have worse air than Bombay not because of anything else but the sea breezes). However you cannot blame it on the middle class alone.

It is not the middle class people who are responsible for causing the majority of the dirt. They do not set up illegal huts for the migrants. The compounds of most cooperative societies are clean. Dharavi, the tracks beside the stations is not where the middle class live. They do not defaecate on the footpaths at Napean Sea road.

The project to clean up Bombay might come at a cost though that again some people may not like. Some of us perhaps would like to send the poor to other cities where they can live with dignity and toilets that Bombay cannot provide. But then those cities may not provide the poor the chance of eking out a living.

As long as other cities will not provide a livelihood they will flock to Bombay because it still can, and dirty it because they know no better and do not care.

Don`t even get me started on the leaches we elect as civic officials. The only good chap was Khairnar and the rest of the political creeps couldn`t wait to get him out.

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./////

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.

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?? ;-)