Daily Routine

The quality of life in Mumbai city is pathetic. I have seen young people suffering from heart disease. Let me analyse the daily routine of a common man in Mumbai.
1> He gets up at 6 am
2> Finishes his daily chores by 7.30am
3> Takes his breakfast and is ready to go to office by 8.15 am
4> Reaches bus stand by 8.25 am
5> Waits for the bus in queue and finally catches it by 8.45 am
6> Reaches the nearest Railway station by 9.15 am
7> Catches the train at 9.20 am. He does not have to stand in queue for ticket since he is holding monthly pass.
8> Reaches the station nearest to his office by 9.45 am ( This is approx time since it depends on where his office is located)
9> Takes another bus to reach office or walks on foot (Apprx 15 mins)
10> Reaches office by 10 am
11> Works in office betwwen 8-10 hrs. Prepares to leave for home by 7 pm
12> Catches bus and reaches nearest railway station by 7.15pm
13> Takes fast local which is overcrowded. Reaches station nearest to his home by 8.pm
14> Waits for bus or auto sometimes up to 30 mts.
15> Takes auto or bus at 8.30 pm
16> Reaches home between 9.30 pm and 10pm. This is due to heavy traffic jam.
17> His children is asleep by that time and his wife is waiting for his return
18> He takes Dinner by 10.30pm
19> He goes to sleep by 11.00pm

The list of activities I have given above is that of an average Mumbaikar. There are people who travel long distances and by the time they reach home, it is 12 midnight.
You can well imagine what kind of life they are leading.

People have no other option but to lead this kind of life. Life is no better for the privileged few who can afford luxury lifestyle. People are overworked. They dont have the time for leasurely activities like going to gym or garden for a walk with the result that they develop disese like diabetese, Artery blockages at young age.
People are caught in the web. People want to earn as much money as possible so that they can lead a comfortable life. They want to work hard in the competitive environment so that they get an edge over others but in doing so, they neglect their health, family, social life etc which is so essential for a person to be happy.

Grand opening

The whole world saw with bated breath the spectacular show produced by India during the opening cremony of commonwealth games, thanks to the last minute effort made by our brave soldiers to save the country from being rediculed and labelled as corrupt, inefficient and incapable of managing a large event. But this does not erase our memory from the fact that our hard earned money has been looted by the corrupt officials. I hope that after the games are over, these officials will be tried in the court of law and if found guilty will be given severe punishment.

Celebrities

My experience has been that celebrities are ordinary folks. They are made larger than life by media and fans. Those who are in demand are living in palatial bunglows and move around in expensive cars. They hardly come in contact with general public.
But those celebrities who are not high in popularity chart afford such luxuries and they move out to co operative societies. I have had the opportunities to interact with such celebrities. Presently, I am staying in a very large complex consisting of 2 towers and 6 buildings of 7 floors each. This society is located in a posh area in western suburbs of Mumbai. There are many celebrities ( Not so popular type) who are staying in our complex. Some are music directors, Actors, T.V. Host, Models etc. It is a coincidence that one of them who happens to be an actress and who has worked in Hindi films in the past is staying in the flat just opposite mine. She is married to a guy who is an international pilot. She has been staying in the complex even before we moved into this complex 5 years ago. She is very tall, very fair and good looking. She soon became friendly with me wife and often used to come to our flat and chat with her. I had no objection to her coming to my flat so long as it did not invade my privacy. We, on our part helped her as and when required so as to maintain a good neighbourly relations. Gradually, I started noticing that her behaviour and mannerism was very insulting at times. She will ring the bell of our main door at odd hours sometimes at 12 midnight for silly things like asking for change. She did not even bother to apologige for her behaviour. Once, she entered our flat holding a glass of juice. I thought, she is going to offer this to us. But instead, she herself was drinking juice from the glass while chatting with my wife. She often used to criticise all other members residing in the building. We then started ignoring her and would give some excuse or the other whenever she required any help from us. Being in the glamour world, she had many bad habits. She used to hold parties at night with loud music creating noise and disturbing everybody. She was addicted to smoking. Whenever we opened the main door of our flat, we will find her smoking while sitting in the staircase. The stench of the cigarette smoke at times was so intense that it was difficult for me to stand even for one minute waiting for the lift. I was very upset with her behaviour. She had no right to smoke in common area and endanger the health of the other members residing in the neighbourly flats. I was the chairman of the society. I put up a notice on the noticeboard which read "Smoking is strictly prohibited in public place. The society will impose a fine of Rs 500 on any member found smoking in common area like staircase, garden, lobby etc". This lady defied the rules completely and continued to smoke. When the security guards came and told her not to smoke, she started shouting and blatantly told them she is not going to stop smoking. She will rather pay fines than stop smoking.

I have told you this story to impress upon the point that celebrities are spoilt brats. They think, they are above the common people. They think, they can get away with anything by sheer power of money. They have no civilised manners, not even basic courtsey which is expected of a normal human beings. They carry an inflated ego with themselves thanks to chamchas and media who make them larger than life. Some societies have rightly made it a point not to allow such people to buy flats in their premises.

The straight line that you draw will look big until you draw another line which is bigger than the one you have drawn previously. CSW scandal, the latest one in the series of scandals this country has witnessed over the last 10 years is perhaps the biggest one to date. All other scams including IPL, look peanuts compared to the scam of this magnitude. Public money has been laundered and looted to the tune of thousands of crores of rupees. The hard earned money of Indian people has gone into the pockets of few shameless corrupt officials. I ask you why the hell should the income tax be paid by the citizen of this country to the government which is not put to use for road infrastructure, public transport, Hospitals and other developmental activities but wasted in such manner. The officials who are involved in this crime may never be punished as usual but what perhaps the Indian Public can do is to boycott commonwealth games as a sign of protest. Ministers, beauracrats, Govt officials have become corrupt to such an extent that they keep denying their involvment despite all the documentary evidence. Why ministers, even the doctors cannot be trusted now a days whose profession is considered noble. It is difficult to pinpoint a single individual who is not corrupt. Corruption is the single biggest impediment in the growth of the country which has the larget pool of technical manpower in the world.

Traffic woes

It has been a long time since I have written blog. Reason being that I have been very busy now a days with a project. There is no other reason for not writing the blog for so long. I hope you understand what I mean. I find Mumbai's traffic very frustrating specially while driving down in the evening back home. I am covering a distance of roughly 20 Kilometers from my home to workplace and vice versa but it takes me 2 1/2 to 3 hours in driving everyday which develops lot of stress in my body. It is not just the traffic intensity that is causing stress but the gross indiscipline of motorists, Autodrivers and pedestrians in following traffic rules that is scary and dangerous. I have to pass through narrow lanes in between which is not wide enough to accommodate even 2 cars in the same row. There is always a risk of meeting with an accident. Even if I cross the traffic signal with green light showing , I still feel unsafe because vehicles can come from any direction and hit me. Almost everybody breaks the signals unmindful of the consequences of doing so. Scooters, autos, Cars can be seen being driven in haphazard manner posing serious threat to life. There is no sense of traffic rules whatsoever. Traffic police is nowhere to be seen. It is free for all. Do whatever you like kind of scenario. Everybody seems to be in a rush to go to grave. Everyday, I wonder whether I will be able to reach home safely. It is this anxiety that is causing stress

Bhopal Gas Tragedy

Who can forget Bhopal Gas Tragedy of 1985 in which more than 40 thousand people reportedly died and more than 2 lakhs people were crippled on account of leakages of poisionous gas from Union Carbide factory located in Bhopal. The actual death toll could be much higher. Indian Court has finally given verdict after 25 years by which time people have already forgotten about this horrible tragedy. Those who are alive are still suffering from various diseases. The government has given compensation to the effected families which is good for nothing. The amount is not even adequate to meet medical expenses of those who are undergoing medical treatment in various hospitals. The wound which is inflicted upon thousands of families will perhaps never be healed. To add salt to the wound, the govt of India has given safe passage to Anderson the Chief of Union Carbide to flee from the country, who is the prime accused in this Tragedy. Whatever be the political compulson under which the govt allowed Anderson to go scot free, they had no right to let go the murderer of thousands of innocent lives. It was the then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi who should be held responsible for this Barbaric act without whose knowledge Anderson would not have escaped.

Now, coming to the point, when the news of Bhopal Tragedy was flashed in media and peoples memories were revived, the Govt gave lukewarm response saying it comes under the jurisdiction of state Govt and central govt does not have any role to play in Anderson's release. But when the chief minister of M.P. gave a statement saying that he received instructions from prime minister's office to Release Anderson, the central govt immediately responded by saying that Rajiv was not even aware of it as he was busy campaigning for elections in south. All senior ministers of congress party started defending Rajiv Gandhi. The common sense says how can a state minister take such a major decision without instructions from the prime minister.

Congress party is now talking of taking a fresh look at the compensation to be given to families of those killed or effected. Perhaps it is a ploy to buy some time for the public anger to subside. After some time, everything will be back to square one.

Had a tragedy of this magnitude occured in US, Anderson by now would have been given life sentence. But in India, if you are powerful, if you are influential, rich, you can get away with any crime. There will be no public protest whatsover. Perhaps, the lives lost in Bhopal belonged to lower middle class and labour class only who were employed by Union Carbide. There is no protest because public is insensitive to the lives of poor people. Just look at what happened in 26/11 Mumbai Terror strike. The terrorists this time targetted rich people including foreigners. This time, there was large scale protest by people including film stars, people belonging to business class and the govt had to bow down to the public pressure. Home minister Shivraj patil was asked to quit, Chief mainister of maharshtra Deshmukh had to give resignation and the central govt had to institute a high level committee to upgrade security of states. Rapid action force was developed and deployed in four states within four months. Intelligence agencies started working in tandem with each other. Surveillance in coastel areas were improved. These measures were taken on war footing.

Justice to the victims of Bhopal tragedy can be done only if the common man comes out on the street and protest against the lackadaisical manner in which the govt has acted so far and provided meager compensation to the victims of the tragedy.
I am writing this post for the common man because I associate myself with them.

I dont know whether people will even bother to read my blog because I am a non entity in the eyes of the common man. If I were a Sachin Tendulkar or Amitabh Bachhan, thousands of people would have flocked to read my blog and give comments. What really matters now a days is who has written the blog rather than what is written in it.

Nevertheless, I am not writing to scale myself up in popularity chart. If that were the motive, I would have stopped writing long back because I hardly get any comments in my blog. I am writing basically to express my emotions and thoughts just as someone maintains personal diary. I will continue to write because writing according to me is a beautiful medium of expression of thought.

Little Bird

Little bird has spread her wings

I try to see her

But I can't

All I can see is

Tremendous courage within her bosom

to fly high in the sky