Mumbai Proved me wrong....

I always thought mumbai as a city with mechanical life. In my opinion, this city was like a big machine where a person enters it in the morning and comes out of it after 12-14 hrs of job doing all the routine things like running for a train/bus, eating wada-paw, working for entire day, then again same race to catch XX:YY hrs. train from VT and go back to home. And this seems to be infinite loop with no ending. In the process a person becomes so absorb that he/she looks like a robot following a written program without any change.

But after listening the stories, which I heard from the newspapers, internet, friends, TV (after 26th flood caused by rainfall) I must say that I only observed the mechanical cover of mumbaiits. Beneath which there is a human face of care, friendliness and courage. When people started going back home on 26th late night or 27th mornign they found people distribituig fruits/tea/biscuits, showing them alternative roads to their destination, warning walking junta of open manholes, offering lift to complete strangers and there are so many such events.

My roommate (Rajurkar) stuck in the office for 26th night and came back from dadar to powai on 27th afternoon. He was even offered to take rest in their home by few persons during his voyage.

I remember a poem, which I wrote few months back on the mechanical or routine life of bombay. Which goes like this:

कुछ तस्वीरें, बेनूर सी

वक्तः शाम के ६ बजे
जगहः VT Station
गया था ज़िंदगी तलाशने के लिये
हिन्दुस्तान का सबसे व्यस्त शहर,
उस शहर का सबसे व्यस्त इलाका
देखा वहॉं थे लोग कई और थी कई ज़िंदगियॉं
पर ध्यान से देखा तो ज़िंदगी थी बंद,
किसी के ब्रीफकेस में, किसी के बैग या झोले में
वहॉं मिली तो केवल तस्वीरें चलती हुई, नहीं, शायद दौडती हुई
ज़िंदगी के रंगों से बेरंग तस्वीरें, पता नहीं किसकी तलाश में भागती तस्वीरें
लंगडे भिखारी और बीमार कुत्ते के दर्द से अंजान तस्वीरें
दूसरों की कौन कहे शायद खुद से भी अंजान तस्वीरें
किसी ने सच ही कहा है कि बंबई कभी नहीं सोती,
क्योंकि ऑंखें तस्वीरों की कभी बंद नहीं होती।

But I am happy to see that tasveerein may look like lifeless but they are full of life and humanity. My thoughts in the poem may be true for a certain time but definitely not the complete picture of this great canvass called mumbai. Hats off to Mumbaikars... I am happy to be proved wrong.

will we ever change?

Something happened two days back because of which I have created this blog account. This something was the great rainfall of Mumbai, which as per record is highest ever in recorded history in India. I was never very much keen on having a blog account because of the simple reason that I never considered myself to be consistent enough to write blog. But there are times when you want to be heard and there is no one to listen. I think that’s where blog comes into the picture.
So the question which was in my mind since last two days that will we ever change? Here “we” includes administrative system of India, which on a larger scale includes a common man too, and its mentality/attitude towards natural/man-made calamities. Learning from the past failure is the natural tendency, and we too have learnt a lot from past calamities, but only on the paper or at debate level. Implementation is always missing. Everyone here seems to be too much enthusiastic to comment and suggest but don’t care to or dare to bring their ideas into reality. In this particular case, I feel that Mumbai has accepted that in every monsoon two or three days will be there when city will be stopped because of heavy rainfall and everybody seems to take it as a normal annual routine. Routinely every year municipal officers declare that we are ready for monsoon and routinely two or three rain forced Bandh are there. Again as tradition newspapers, radio, TV make hulla-gulla and in the end learning is practically zero. I see the same situation in every scenario, be it natural calamity like earthquake, flood, cyclone or manmade calamity like communal riots. We don’t seem to change. Willingly or unwillingly we accept as the wish of god and go back to our normal routine sooner then we ourselves expect on the day of disaster. I don’t know how to change it, or will it ever change.
I am having a strange feeling to start my blog with such kind of feeling. But I can’t help it. As I already said sometimes you want to tell and there is nobody to listen.