May 18, 2002 01:16 PM
3680 Views
(Updated May 18, 2002 01:21 PM)
When I moved out of Delhi to shift to Mumbai my brother resided in Tardeo pretty much near the hub of the city and all appeared Hunky dory, I thought my decision to accept a transfer to Mumbai would reap rich benefits, it was the time When CROSSROADS had just opended their mall and daily I used see the lines forming in front to get into the mall and be happy that Mumbai was the place, the discs where near by so were the cinema's where good movies played.....that was the good side of Mumbai where your garbage was collected and the roads where driveable.
Then I went house hunting,, and was hounded by the the estate agents. I finally found a place inAndheri bang on S.V. Road luckily I have abank downstairs who have reinforced the walls so I don't hear the traffic., its a quiet building which overlooked a school and I at least had a clear view and not people peeping into my house, then I set up sho[ in Santacruz and thought that all would be fine as my office was just 5 kms from my house and I could use ,my car to get around and not the local trains.
But little did I know about the BMC then and it's utter disregard of keeping the city clean and the roads driveable, in Delhi (where I used to previously reside) if the distance was 5 kms I used to keep 15 minutes in hand to get there and was always on time.
Here the 5 kms used to take me 1.5 hours to get there due to the crosstown traffic (sometimes my road rage knew no bounds and I used to beat my fists on my wheels), then on Mondays at sharp 9 o clock when one is driving to the office bulldozers picking up garbage and another dumper truck to block the way evry week without mistake and made mincemeat out of my appointments and caused weekly delays
Then the monsoon hit and the roads just turned into pot holes, I had to decide which pothole to risk getting into as who knows if the manhole is open or closed.
The last straw for me was the news one day that a Sweeper in the BMC (who r paid Rs 7,000 a month????) had employed another person to do his duties while he was laundering money for the underworld or god knows who!!
Rs 7,000 to a sweeper who hadn't shown up for work in ages but was being payed his dues (and in the end when they raided his house and found Rs 85 CRORES in currency notes, was the bummer for me).
Come election time the Bhai's and Behns got on the campaign trail exchanging songs of disgrace based on recent Bollywood hits upon their opponents face, I gave up and tried to do my own and at least now I have 2 sweepers who clean the front of my building so that I don't have to feast my eyes on the scum of the city as soon as I start the wroking day.
I maybe wrong and others may have good experiences but this is my tale of how the BMC tends to operate..............
chinu
