Raining on Bombay's Party
Alas! what a rude awakening. Among all the Indian cities, Bombay has always had a more confident strut. It was the quentessential Indian eveb global city - cosmpolitan, always on the move, thriving, reinventing. So Claimed the Bomabayites. Then the rains came. They came down incessantly. They washed and drowned every street, road and building together with Bombay's claim as the global city at the heart of a thriving, growing India.
I am from Madras but I love Bombay. I am not sure I can live there but Bombay charms me. I always have enjoyed visiting it. I am also a realist. I dont think that any Indian city can truly call itself global - Bombay certainly cannot. Maybe it is better than the other but that is an abysmally low bar.
Maybe the Corporations of Bombay and other Indian megacities will see this as an awakening, albeit a rude one. All the Indian cities are choking and putrefying in their own decay. They need sustainable growth plans to answer the transportation, sanitation, water-supply and pollution problems.
From what I have seen of Madras and Bangalore and extrapolating the experience, our Indian cities are atleast 50+ years from calling themselves global. Sad but True.
I am from Madras but I love Bombay. I am not sure I can live there but Bombay charms me. I always have enjoyed visiting it. I am also a realist. I dont think that any Indian city can truly call itself global - Bombay certainly cannot. Maybe it is better than the other but that is an abysmally low bar.
Maybe the Corporations of Bombay and other Indian megacities will see this as an awakening, albeit a rude one. All the Indian cities are choking and putrefying in their own decay. They need sustainable growth plans to answer the transportation, sanitation, water-supply and pollution problems.
From what I have seen of Madras and Bangalore and extrapolating the experience, our Indian cities are atleast 50+ years from calling themselves global. Sad but True.
posted by brihaspati | 8/03/2005 02:58:00 pm
3 Comments:
True. What bothers me is that it took 10 full days for the city to recover and there were no properly co-ordinated relief and rescue efforts.
Yes, it is very sad. Some article stated that politicians were being ferried to safety. In the mean time an off-duty(!) police officer lost his life while trying to save people who were drowning.
Brihaspati man, it is me from GCE, and yes that was my blog you posted at. Not going to comment on your Mumbai Rain post coz its too close to my world - my immediate family is there and they've suffered it. Yet, its a city that doesn't really quite live upto the "world class" image that it tirelessly tries to project.
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