Mumbai, the much-maligned: Go drown yourself into the Arabian Sea with shame

Mumbai has been the subject of so much malice. Ever since we can recall, a majority of the Hindi movies have been made in Mumbai, and on Mumbai. The underworld, the brothels, the dirty slums, all have been portrayed with romanticism, again and again, bringing more and more infamy to the maximum city. But going by the New India narrative, when Kota feels maligned by the makers of Mardaani 2, which is a sequel to the same drama that led to Padmavati being renamed Padmavat, Mumbai should have felt so maligned by now, it could as well drown itself into the Arabian Sea.

So then I am reminded of so may cities across India who would be crying wolf at being labeled negatively - Wasseypur, Mirzapur, Ghaziabad, Aligarh, Gurgaon, the badlands of Bihar, UP and MP and of course Ramgarh. If we look at the non-Indian moviedom, there would be many candidates vying for the Hall of Shame - New York, Las Vegas, Sicily, to name a few.

To those who have reasons to complain, however invalid their logic may be, these are mere stories. I would be keen to write a novel on the yet to mature crime scene in Bhilai and the highly matured coaching mafia, for instance. I have already begun working on an interesting 'corporate' story inspired by real events that took place in Bhilai recently. But I am sure my readers won't feel offended by my indiscretion, and that they would understand.

Empty Words of Two Generations

When Greta Thunberg accused the world leaders of having stolen her childhood, many people thought she was pointing fingers in Trumpesque style at Trump himself - "How dare you?"

When I was younger than what is Greta's age today, in the 1970s and in school, the term global warming had started getting attention. We were told how the world would be hell in 50 years' time with glaciers melting and sea-levels rising. But there were comforting voices as well who brushed under the carpet the seriousness of the issue by putting up interesting convincing arguments.

And so two generations - mine and the one before that - continued to plunder the world. Forests were uprooted. But weren't we planting 10 trees in place of one that we had cut? We were doing so by overlooking the reality that a tree that took thousands of years to stands on its feet was being replaced by saplings which may or may not survive a few years. After all we have been planting saplings every year at the same pit on World Environment Day since I cannot recall when. Mineral and oil exploration is another environment-degrading activity which has a multiplier effect on the rate at which glaciers are melting. The superpowers are ready to drill for more oil in the Arctic region once the glaciers there vanish!

When Prime Minister Modi launched the ambitious Swachha Bharat Mission that aimed at making India spic and span by 2nd October 2019, we all were so relieved. The sins of two generations had a golden chance at redemption. But both the generations failed. While there has been considerable progress in number of toilets and significant reduction in open defecation, pollution continues to be the bane of our surroundings. What was needed was regular picking-up of garbage by our municipalities, even without the mission. What we have seen instead is mud-slinging, the case of the Municipal Corporations versus the Delhi government being a shining example of that. No doubt then that the PM has taken upon the plastic menace as his next mission. After all, all the plastic that could have been removed safely if the municipalities had done what was their regular job, we could have made India Swachh by now.

So my sincere apologies to Greta and her generation. Yes child, we have failed you and refuse to move an inch to absolve ourselves. We did not dare. We whimpered. We cowered. We let the world go down the drain. The excessive rains are only helping accelerate that process.

Fantastic

It is early morning. My daughter Saumya and I decide to go to the nearest town on my cycle. As we begin the journey, we come across a steep road. By instinct Saumya, who is sitting on the cycle's carrier, tries to press the brakes to regulate its speed. I prevent her from doing so. We go down the slope and suddenly it is dark. As we emerge from the trough, light returns. Suddenly I realise that we have actually an auto-rickshaw hooked to our cycle and that we have no idea who the owner is. We get into this nearby town after some time and enter a by-lane by mistake. We come out of the by-lane and return to the town. We abandon the auto-rickshaw deciding not to take the risk of towing it back to our town and getting caught. Saumya wants painting accessories. We look around for shops. Some two or three shops are open, as the light coming out of them shows, but they aren't stationery stores, I tell her. So move out to a nearby street, on one side of which is a large ground of some school. We look across the length of the street. It is dawn here and the street lights are not on. Either there is no electricity or the street lights have been turned off at this time of day-break. There is a row of old houses opposite the school campus. We decide to ask the old couple standing in front of their house where the nearest stationery store is. The old man, who looks like he is a Muslim from his get-up, and his wife, who is dressed in a simple saree worn like Bengalis do, tell me that that the piece of land I was looking for is still cheaply available. I wonder how do they know that I am looking for a piece of land for a school, and that too when I have never been to this place earlier. Or did I come here earlier, I try to recall. May be they are confusing me with someone else. But since I am actually looking for land to start a school, i ask the lady the going price.

And then I wake up and I realise that may be I am missing Saumya who has just gone abroad for her higher studies.