Resilience or Ignorance or Simply Giving Up

Mumbai, Mumbai, Mumbai... I don't know what kind of city is this. This city has always been a puzzle for me. Prompt response of mumbaikars after the blasts is one face and coming back to normal life very next day is another face. Media, be it radio, newspapers or TV are eulogising "spirit of Mumbai" in one voice. But coming back to routine within 48 hours shows resilience or indifference of a common man. I would be happy to know if the answer is resilience and sad to know if it is indifference. But what if it is none of the two? I will be horrified to know if it is a case of simply giving up. What if we are coming to normal life just because we don't have any other option? What if we have completely surrendered to the situation?

Last two weeks were like spell on the city. Five days of consistent rain put the city on its knees. Then came Sunday, July 9th. Everybody was looking forward to have a nice (dry) Sunday and great football match, world cup final between France and Italy. But what city saw was the rampage by shivsainiks, burning of bus, stone pelting and what not. Thankfully there was no casualty and this did not flare up in the communal tension. Then came Tuesday, 11th July. Everything was normal till 6:15 in the evening and then came a series of 7 explosions within a short span of 20 mins. Mumbai was thrown out of gear again, 3rd time in 10-12 days. But people helped each other without giving a second thought and anyone would feel proud to have fellow citizens like mumbaikars. There were stories in media about a person who gave lift to injured persons in his car and saved many lives or one person who came to a hospital and lent more then 2 Lakh Rupees for the treatment of complete strangers. I don't know in how many cities you could find such persons.

But my question is different. Everyone knows that prevention is better then cure. Then why we keep waiting something to happen. It's very good to show strength after a crisis, but wouldn't it be better to use some strength to prevent events like this? Big claims were made to improve drainage system of city after 26/7 last year by BMC and state government, but this year again much less rain than 26/7 halted city for more then 3 days. Why we allowed our leaders and authorities to shirk? Putting some efforts throughout the year could have easily avoided flooding this year, but we choose to sleep for the year and bash the government/municipality for their failure after the event. Similar questions are raised by Pritish Nandy in Times of India and Sucheta Dalal in Indian Express. It's good to see that we are getting tired of praises and hollow promises and have started questioning ourselves.

Where is the spirit of Mumbai for entire year and why this spirit fails to get work done through normal course rather then suddenly waking up after a disaster?

Make a change now onwards...