Misplaced in Mumbai

Mumbaikars lament the decay of their beloved metro but don’t care if that’s not a ballot subject

The Mumbai voter’s misery, all that hand-wringing, is relatively nicely captured in Maratha quotaman Jarange Patil’s determined trajectory to pressure a change in circumstance. A strike, an indefinite quick, a compromise, a sense of betrayal, an indignant entry into ballot fray, and a strategic exit – all efforts to pressure a reset, thwarted, a goal delay right into a imprecise future. Precisely like Mumbai metropolis, India’s monetary capital, dwelling to zillions of billionaires, the place a whole lot and hundreds nonetheless flock to dream and do, but, a metropolis fatigued, worn down, spent – left to defend for itself its once-dazzling character, a cosmopolitan previous its residents lament about in countless waves of nostalgia. What Mumbai, dream metropolis, most metropolis, everybody’s metropolis, may have been. Reality is, nobody’s any longer accusing Mumbai metropolis of ‘internationalism’. Its glitzy pockets haven’t expanded. As a substitute, the super-rich’s blinding dazzle is sharper, throwing darker and longer shadows onto everyman’s metropolis.

In these shadows lurk Mumbai’s actuality – one among creaky infra, delayed completion of initiatives like flyovers, defective bridges, encroachments over mangroves, visitors congestion, housing woes, and public areas devoured for personal exercise. Mumbai at present may very well be any metropolis, its growth following the hotel-mall-business district template, monstrosities mushrooming in each metropolis suburb – with out a thought to inclusion, not to mention design, aesthetics or what a megacity wants. Nobody is asking who we’re constructing for. Center-class is groaning underneath the burden of Mumbai’s decay, a coastal metropolis vying with soiled Delhi even on poisonous air. Its airport? Jammed. Day by day commute? Like going into battle.

Undivided Sena politics served its goal in carving out parochial fault strains in Bombay. Its most radical concept, backed by most events, on reflection appears to have been to rename the town Mumbai. That’s telling. These constructing the ever-expanding megapolis, coming from throughout the nation, turned fodder for politics of ‘othering’. The town’s multicultural worldview shut out; trying inwards revealed a closed thoughts. But, there was little wrath from residents, no outrage evident in any ballot marketing campaign. No demand that the megacity’s actual issues be addressed, its civic facilities saved in keeping with rising inhabitants, no demand these characteristic entrance and centre in neta speeches, or manifestos. Mumbaikars allowed their metropolis to go south. Immediately, one battle between UBT Sena and BJP is UBT’s cost of a Gujarati takeover of tradition and enterprise. Jarange Patil deserted the ballot street that’d take his battle to Mumbai. He possible figured regardless of the build-up of roads, the town’s going nowhere. And, Mumbaikars, regardless of their clamour, appear to care little.

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