Monday, December 12, 2011

The Dirty City


‘Clean Mumbai! Green Mumbai! Beautiful Mumbai’ – These few phrases are a rude bundle of crap from BMC and all the politicians who have made the Shanghaification of Mumbai a colossal joke.
Apart from the many popular polluting elements of air, water, sound that afflict Mumbai, one which is less talked about but one of the most rampant forms is ‘Visual Pollution’. 

Huge ugly looking vinyl hoardings with ugly politicians with creepy smiles grouped with sycophants dot every road and square.  Those very smiling goons bash up sincere lads who go to remove the illegal cost-free advertising hoardings and threaten BMC workers who order them removed.  Bah! to think, multinationals shell out money to pay for the almost as ugly OOH (out of home) advertising.
 

The airport road was once upon a time supposed to be ‘beautified’ to avoid foreign visitors from getting headaches from all the ugliness that hits them suddenly.  After seeing a sea of blue, which is not the Arabian sea, visitors and Mumbaiites come out in the open in grubby taxis, to see people peeing, squatting, shitting on roads, picking lice on their heads etc. If that were not enough to make them want to turn back, they get to see the unavoidable unseemly sight of people spitting usually that revolting red muck every five seconds on pockmarked roads.

The ugliness continues on the unpainted roads with construction rubble lying everywhere –on the sides, below flyovers, on the unpainted dividers, with dried up and dead ‘beautifying trees’. No lane markings are present on any roads, and the dividers broken wherever convenient for motorists to make illegal passes and turns. New flyovers had come up were supposed to be gleaming and shiny new structures.  Then I saw these weird metal contrapments, probably cellphone towers all along the flyovers.  God! More ugliness! Talking of unpainted, rows and rows of dilapidated buildings with peeling dirty paint look on with shanties at their bases all along every large road in Mumbai and in smaller bylanes.

‘Clean up!’ dirty green Garbage trucks of BMC freely ride the roads at all times of the day and one sees a ‘Mera Bharat Mahaan’ painted on some unsightly broken granite obstruction in the middle of the road. The whole city is a dustbin for one and all where people litter as they please, where they stand, leaving their legacy behind for someone to clean up after them. Shopkeepers dust their shops driving the garbage to the middle of the road onto unsuspecting pedestrians.  A pile of garbage that should not be where it is, collects for days together.  Numerous flea ridden dogs and scraggly cats are seen loitering near these dumps or the middle of roads. 

One would escape the ugliness that abounds this city once one was home; I would have liked to believe, but there, as I enter, dirty shoes of all the family haphazardly kept by my building people greet me on the staircase. Across the window, in the opposite building, I am forced to look at my neighbours’ chaddis, banians and bras hanging out of their living room windows to dry.
Call me intolerant or just a foreign returned NRI even if it was for a really short while, or call me snooty, a snob, or whatever, but could we PLEASE stop exhibiting all our clothes to our neighbours, and stop littering alteast!?

And to think, people call this morbid place a beautiful city. Mere wishful thinking probably where we refer to the ‘indomitable’spirit and resilience of Mumbaiites as beauty. I wish we stopped talking about beauty like that in the Miss Worlds where they unnecessarily discuss ‘inner beauty’ on mugged up answers. I am done with the inner beauty, I want to see some physical beauty in this city! It is nice to sit on to Marine drive and stare out into the sea out of Mumbai.  Staring out of Mumbai makes it beautiful you see.  The city is a damn dump.  Can anyone at all do anything to reduce disgusting habits, really clean up and to make this city less of an eyesore than it can be helped? I love this city despite its short-comings and heaven knows why I want to return always to it and I always did, but indeed, it is being abused way beyond its tolerance limits. One day, it will exact its terrible revenge from the denizens of Mumbai unless something were done about it.

21 comments:

  1. Totally agree. Of all the things mentioned, something I just couldn't handle was the constant spitting when I lived in Pune for 2 years. Mumbai is worse, but I need to see that only on the few days I visit my in-laws every year.

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  2. @Subhrada - Welcome to my blog. India is the only place in the world where I ve seen people spitting so randomly and I don't understand why. It is seriously so gross and repulsive.

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  3. Well spewed! Another aspect of ugliness is the consistency (or lack) of colors used in painting buildings. Most of the cities regulate how the buildings should appear from outside which is why so many cities we visit look neat and orderly. But not our bmc. Even if we remove some colors from hardware stores, city's aesthetics would improve.

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  4. @magic eye - When educated people act the way they do, what do we say of the vast majority!

    @Beli - Maybe everyone should go for the NY style red brick facades! Cheap probably and don't require painting!

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  5. It's not only the government or the officials who are at fault, but each one of us.We need to learn from other cities/countries and it's people, the whole callous attitude needs to be changed if we dream of making this city into a better or a beautiful one. Amid all the anger and frustration in the post, what stood out for me was your love for the Maximum city!

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  6. @Arti - so rightly said. The sab chalta hain attitude and sheer lack of respect for anything that belongs to someone else is taking the country so so down. I love Mumbai, and hence the frustration. I guess, it would have been indifference otherwise!

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  7. Well all the major cities of India are with filth and squalor which is very depressing.It's an individual's responsibility to not litter the surroundings.Alas but the so called educated people have too become blindfolded.

    It's a bit of a conundrum, because many people are very concerned about clothing, personal appearance and personal hygiene - but they don't seem to have the same regard for their surroundings.

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  8. @Amruta - I completely agree with the irony of the situation. People strive to keep their homes clean, but drive out the dirt on to their surroundings. Talk about selfishness again.

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  9. We behave well when we are in foreign land, but suddenly the trash bins become invisible when we land in India. I have had a bird's view of mumbai from a flight, I don't fancy staying in mumbai....

    And, yes, I know people who love the city for whatever it be, but the truth is what it is!

    Appreciate the sharp tone of the post.

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  10. I know. We all just play the blame game. I cant bear the deplorable condition of various cities. It takes the responsibility of each and every individual.
    I have seen people who so educated but don’t have civic sense.

    Love
    http://www.meghasarin.blogspot.com

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  11. @Megha- True. If educated people behave so badly, what can we expect out of the people who aren't aware of what they are doing.

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  12. Next time you see someone throw a banana peel, empty a pack peanut shells - scream at him!!

    It's our country/our city...if we can't keep it clean, who will?

    Loved the sharp tone of your posts -atta girl!

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  13. @Purba - I always do - create a scene, make them feel ashamed if at all they have a conscience make them pick up their damn trash! :). Wish everyone around did that!

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  14. Speaking of clothes hanging out from balconies making the ugly picture of Mumbai complete and your righteous indignation about it I was reminded of the ban the Sultan of Muscat had put on this disgusting habit of drying clothes in the balconies of their beautifully painted buildings so as not to mar the beauty of the façade. When you next come to visit us you will find the city as spotlessly clean as it was earlier.
    There is certain order in the universe All the divine forces and living beings like animals birds and trees do their jobs properly .Only we humans with our god given free will are bent on abusing this freedom and act as we please If we continue to show total disregard to this order which is god itself is there any chance of our being spared from the disastrous consequences that will ensue ?
    Very apt description of Mumbai. Continue your good job.

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    1. I wish there were a total ban on this vulgar display of clean dirty clothes everyday! Muscat will be a balm to my eyes after this filth! I so agree with humans totally disrupting the beauty there is. Disorganized chaotic creatures we are! Thanks for your encouragement always.

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  15. Very true! Forget shoes. I get to see my neighbour's pet's shit right outside my door. Sometimes he even sits outside our door and even in great hurry we have to knock their door ask them to take him in. Arguing with them doesn't help. I don't know why people are SO ignorant about these usual manners! And I totally agree with the 'Visual pollution'. Its a disgusting sight to see those ugly smiling faces all over.

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    1. Totally. It is hard to keep telling neighbours to stop their dirty habits. Mine keeps her garbage out. It really is so disgusting. That is the mentality - keep homes clean, everything outside is a dustbin adding to the visual pollution blatantly. Sigh!

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  16. since ur profile includes ur interests as reading, im assuming u have read parvez mushharrafs memoirs. most of it is pure a highly biased views of a megalomaniac but the last section talks about reforms in all spheres of society. the steps he took to turn the country's fortunes around, or atleast started to, are commendable. we need an iron fist who can deliver what they promise. in return, i dont mind if some of our freedoms, which we anyways take undue advantage of, are curbed, in the interests of the country as a whole. look at the success stories all around, most notably Israel, which literally squashed through not 1, not 2, but 3 countries with nothing but sheer grit and determination.

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    1. I have not done so, but it sounds interesting. I agree on an iron hand, but problem is one doesn't know where the iron hand should stop curbing freedom. Stopping the good with the bad will be a dangerous thing too.

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    2. the one who does something is at equal blame to the one who does nothing, or allows bad things to happen by not taking affirmative action, which is happening in india today. under the catchword of democracy, things which should never even start, are continuing with impunity. the biggest example of this is the treatment of Ajmal Kasab.
      by iron hand u refer to dictatorship perhaps, but taking the example of israel again, they never had dictatorship but democracy which did everything.

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