Mumbai woes...

One full day of rains and all the claims of the city bosses went swirling down the drain. Sorry, they didn't, because the drains are clogged and nothing flows through them except kickbacks.

Harbor line trains, maybe the most neglected of all the already neglected civic amneties for Mumbai-kars, grinded to a halt. The journalist on TV was talking bull-shit when she said trains were late by 15 mins.

So very wrong.

An hour long journey took me around 5 hours to complete today. The trains was crawling at a speed of few cm / min.

It Isn't funny that while many commuters knew exactly the problem areas, which places like Kurla, Chunabhatti etc. are prone to getting water logged, the authorities still feigns surprise on each occasion. As it turned out, the common public were spot on, on the problem assessment all the time.

" It happens each year", they said with a shrug.

I wonder, why then the city planners and administrators of the future Shanghai have not been able to address this problem visible to all and sundry? 
Why are we painfully made aware of our helplessness on each rains? 
Are they waiting for a few casualties/violence to take heed of the basic problems? 

Today was not a cloud burst, there was no significantly abnormal rainfall, yet this side of the city once again was brought to its knees. And when I hear the same old clichéd epithets of "maximum city" and the "city that never stops" I can only recount this incident that I witnessed at the Vashi station.

The commuters, fed up waiting for hours for a train beyond to Kharghar, Panvel etc. had commandeered a train which was supposed to go to the car-shed. When I left, the commuters had gherao-ed the hapless engine driver, while the announcer was pleading with them to let the train go, and the train blowing the siren time again. I was worried about the well being and the safety of the poor driver.

This, to me is the people expressing their anger that enough is enough. Sadly, it seems no one is listening. After the ignominy of half the country plunging in power blackout for 2 days back to back, apathetic and cruel torture of the hard working Mumbai-kars is indeed worrying.