76 - FIRE . . .

Builders advertise a very rosy picture for flats to be sold.  The first page of newspapers flaunt exciting images and lucrative offers.

 Hiranandani builders, Thane,  offer 'an address that's lively, convenient and desirable'.   With tennis courts, tree lined avenues, landscaped gardens and an exclusive gymnasium in the building premises.

The Regency Group, Titwala,  promises 'your dream home with lakhs of savings'.  No GST, no stamp duty and no registration.  Besides these promises, they boast of having won various awards, the affordabloe segment by CNBC, environment friendly award,  Times realty award for affordable homes, etc.

RNA builders,Mira road, boast about children's play area, senior citizen garden, 24x7  cctv surveillance, etc.

Rustomjee Thane, advertises that it offers a balcony,a squash court, tennis court, mini theatre, swimming pool, mini golf, party hall, spa, tree surfing, yoga hall etc.

Ekta builders, Goregaon, has a full page ad that  says 'an address that will make your life  luxurious'.
They will give buyers an experience designed by Holyfield gymn, with international equipment, coupled with the finest luxuries and comforts to let you live healthy for your lifetime.  No hidden costs, no club charges, no infra charges, no outgoings.

The Ozone Group, Dadar, has advertised that they are selling lavish homes.  And that 'thank god, money can buy heaven.'  A concierge, a podium, zero bricks, crack free construction, fire safety ducts and a fire lift.

These are a few details of only the full page ads that appear in newspapers.  Besides there are countless offers of flats for sale and hire.  But yet, none are promising  that the premises has a foolproof fire fighting system, except one project that promises 'fire safety ducts'.  But nothing about the wiring, whether it is heavy duty copper or cheap aluminium.  No mention of the trip switches or the fuse box or the common electrical room precautions mentioned at all.

As a layperson, I do not comprehend a few of the items mentioned.  What is a 'dry fountain'??, no outgoing??,  infra charges??,  tree surfing??,  a dedicated fire lift??

There are so many things that can cause a fire, and a multi storey is a death trap, no matter how careful everyone is, because the residents overlook many risks that can lead to a fire.

1)  The wiring in flats is usually cheap aluminuim wiring, and it needs to be replaced with copper electrical wiring.
2)  Trip switches should match the gadgets installed in each house.
3)  The main fuse in the common metre room should also match the number of gadgets installed in each house.
4)  Servants should be trained as to how to handle electrical gadgets like irons,  geysers, ovens, chargers, ACs and also the gas of the cooking range.
5)  Children should be made aware of the dangers of misusing power for video games, mobile chargers etc.
6)  When new gadgets like a washing machine, or a fridge, or an oven are installed, the owner should make sure that the the plug point is matching.
7)  Rats are a major concern because they chew wires of electrical gadgets and that leads to short circuits and fire.

 Once when we had bought a new Godrej fridge, it was installed with a small size three pin plug.  Within two days of use, we noticed smoke and flames ensuing from the plug point and had to take steps to put off the fire,  and thank God we were just leaving the house to go out for a walk, when we noticed the flames.  The company was unapologetic and just replaced the plug with a bigger one of higher ampere.  The plug point that had burnt off had to be repaired at our own cost.

I recall that there was a dysfunctional geyser in the flat when I came to the house as a new bride and I decided to replace it and get it functional.  The shops are freely selling the gadgets one needs but there is no way that I can hire an electrician who is well trained.  I was directed to ask around for a plumber or an electrician among the squatters on the footpath at Nana Chowk or Tardeo.  How was I to ascertain the credentials or expertise of persons that squat on a footpath, waiting for odd jobs?  Some of them look so poor, with tattered clothes.  Anyway, one person came home and fixed the geyser.  The next day when I switched it on, there was smoke where the wire was joined to the main line.  The man returned and put in place a porcelain connector, which worked for a few days and then it also started smoking.  It was a horrifying experience, and I would just wait for the water to be heated by the afternoon sunlight, instead of using the geyser.  Many years later, the entire aluminium wiring of the house was replaced with copper wires and then the geyser too worked safely.  But most of the flats in the building still have aluminuim wiring.

Another time, I dropped the electrical iron and after a few days, there was a minor blast in it and smoke billowed from it, giving me  a fright.  But I switched off the mains and saved the situation.

At a certain workplace the AC went up in flames all of a sudden and it was later discovered that the rats had chewed the inner wiring causing a short circuit and so the flames.  And it happened twice, in different rooms at this workplace.

Recently, an article in a newspaper outlined the precautions that should be taken for the electrical wiring of highrises, by Mr.KKK Nair, an electrical expert.  But where is an expert when we want to install an AC or a washing machine, or even an oven?   The company offers 'free installation' and thats it.  The follow up for any problems have to be handled by others,  whose expertise we have no means of checking.

All schools teach about electricity at the senior levels, but there is no practical knowledge given.  It should be a compulsory subject in all schools, and every student should be trained in simple awareness about electricity gadgets, how to change a bulb, how wiring affects the electrical charges, how electricity is dangerous, how it can lead to shocks or a fire etc.

At bus stops, the advertisements have generators installed to supply power to the lighting at night.  I have warned children not to hug the pillars that support the electrical wiring, even when they are with their parents, who are quite oblivious of the dangers that  that can cause.  The worst aspect of electricity is that it cannot be seen, only felt.

Electrical giants like Kirloskar, Bajaj, Crompton Greaves, HBL, Emco, Havels, BHEL, Siemens, and service providers like Reliance, Tata, BEST, and retailers like Croma, Vijay sales, Kohinoor, Godrej, should all make it a point to educate students and hold camps at crowded slums, and housing societies, to educate people about wiring, amperes, short circuits, fuses, trip switches, etc.

I visit schools during any function like an interschool competition, sport's day  or a prize day or even any wedding and am appalled to see how fans and lights and speakers are installed with the naked wires poked into the plug points, without any earthing wire or plug.  The temporary connections are dealt with by contractors and so no one bothers to interfere,

It is the duty of the concerned principals and administrators, who hire them and pay them,  to be aware of these minor problems that could lead to a major accident.  But who will bell the cat??

55 - A MESSAGE TO THE MODI

It would be a grass roots eye opener for the 'great' Modi to please visit CST, disguised as a woman.  And then he must visit the ladies' toilet.  For Rs.5/ I think that the caretaker there earns more than even the platform ticket sales.

Women of all classes and creeds and ages,  are desperately crowding into the dirty and derelict toilets at the CST.  The narrow entrance is blocked by the woman in charge, who demands her money before you can enter furthur.  The stench drowns your senses and the flooded and cracked floor tiles are a danger that one has to overcome and walk inwards.  Three doors, so soiled that I flinched to even touch one when I managed to wait until it was my 'turn' to use the toilet.

The pushing and squeezing between the sweaty female bodies is not a pleasant experience at all.  The toilet doors are cracked and two have no inner latches.  One toilet was flooded.  The one I entered, was in such a sorry state of disrepair and uncleanness, that if my need was not so urgent, then I would never have entered such a disgustingly unhygienic 'toilet'.

That is one of the reasons that I enjoy visiting any mall.  At least the toilet facilities are decent and clean.  There is an attendant and there are washbasins and toilet paper and  clean clean toilets.

Recently I had to go to Dadar to travel by the Shivneri, and the ladies' toilet at the bus stand is usable for rupees five.  It is a very narrow squeeze and the window slats are in disrepair, but the steel toilet was clean.  And then I visited the toilet at the Pune depot of the same bus service, and that was so so unusable.  Charges were rupees five, but the entire inner area was flooded in 2 inches of unclean water .......and only one of the three enclosures was usable.  There was no door latch and it was dirty and smelly. Yuck, yuck and yuck.

If you are shopping at Crawford Market, after walking through the numerous crowded lanes, you feel thirsty, and visit any restaurant to quench your thirst, but you will not be able to use a toilet, because they say that they have none.  Only one restaurant has  a loo for customers but access is restricted for one, only after you have placed your order, because people tend to enter, use the loo and leave.  The  main door of the hotel has the message,  washroom is only for authentic customers.

So many shops all over Mumbai, with men and women working there, so many traffic constables working on the roads, so many taxi drivers all over the place,  where do they manage to relieve themselves?

There is a very posh restaurant near my house, where rich people arrive in expensive cars to eat there.  The drivers wait in the car and very often relieve themselves behind the parked car.  It is so embarrassing to be walking along the narrow road and then realize that some fellow is urinating close to the path that I am using.

Mr. Modi,  your endeavour to encourage the Indian public to use toilets and not defecate and urinate in open spaces is very correct but there need to be more free public toilets all over India.  There are whole families living on footpaths and on the beach in Mumbai and they defecate on plastic bags and on paper and put it into the drains near their haunts, by lifting the cover.  So if anyone is walking along a footpath where the draincover has a rope tied around the handle lid, then that is the easy access lid for the toilet outlet, for the footpath dwellers.

I would like to take the prime minister for a walk along the road in 'posh' south Mumbai, even along the route to the chief minister's bungalow,  because travelling in an air conditioned car does not let you see the ground reality.

53 - MUMBAI SIGHTS AND INSIGHTS

Yesterday I travelled to Chembur from Girgaon, for some personal work.  The taxi journey was almost two hours long, with endless views of exhaust pipes of buses and other 4 wheelers.  But the return journey by bus,  let me appreciate a few interesting sights of Mumbai.


At the Nana Lal Mehta flyover, near Matunga,  the area beneath the flyover has been transformed into an aesthetic walking space, with a neat pathway and greenery and sitting space.  Public was enjoying the space in the shade.  Wow!  If only the same transformation could be emulated at all other 'below-the-flyover' spaces.  All other similar spaces are a horror, with overflowing garbage bins, haphazardly parked vehicles, beggars living and multiplying and carrying out their daily life  chores in the public eye.



The next beautiful sight was outside the Cosmos Bank at Gokhale Road, Dadar.  Two dead tree trunks have been painted colourfully and each has been mounted with some sculptures to enhance the trunks.  One has a lotus and the other has a peacock.  It looks very natural and calming.



Then the Atria Mall flyover before Haji Ali, had the next 'treat' for the senses.  Just as we pass Worli naka and approach Atria Mall,  the stench of the Worli sewage clearing plant, assaults our senses.  and then the lovely green and fresh climbers that adorn the walls of the flyover, calm the passersby.



At Mumbai Central, either side of the road has a narrow pavement that is converted into an open air mall, every evening.  One side has a display of colourful T-shirts, watches and headphones, bags and books, and fruits.  The other side is home to the nomadic Nepalese woollens sellers.  They have built their make shift stalls all along the sidewalk, almost fifty stalls on one side of the bridge, the other side is the space for the fish and pickle stalls.  It is a soothing sight to watch people earning an honest living, rather than to see a bridge pavement taken over by slums and beggars.



Then I travelled towards the Lower Parel railway bridge.  You can buy clothes and shoes, vegetables and fruit, mobile covers and headphones,  warm clothes and toys, fresh vadapav, chilled beverages.
But when the stalls disappear, you can see the slums with their innumerable naked babies defecating openly and men smoking happily.  The women cooking and conversing aloud.  I personally knew a well-to-do man, who envied these open air slum dwellers.   Hmmmmm.........My advice to such people is that they are free to join the choice of their dreams.











 

35 - MUMBAI LOCAL-LIFELINE?

It is commonly referred to as the 'lifeline' of Mumbai city-the local train.  But I beg to differ, in that, I feel that if you travel by the local, then you need a lifeline to survive.

My experiences of the local train network are varied.  I am a bus traveller, but sometimes it is more efficient to travel by the local because they have a fixed time slot and  one can reach the destination of far flung suburbs faster than by bus.  Besides direct buses are not available to far off suburbs and the bus services are not regular.  Trains are regular and reliable.  But.....

The misery of train travel begins at the ticketing window.  Dirty, smelly, scantily clad urchins or a minor beggar, or an old, half paralyzed beggar, are always on one side of the ticketing window, watching you buy your ticket, making you guilty of spending money on yourself.  Their extended palms and rhythmic banging of a begging bowl, puts one off, the anticipation of the journey is now perforated with sadness and remorse, at the state of the individual that one is expected to appease with cash.

Then the rush of boarding the correct train, and hurriedly plonking onto any vacant seat, before none are left vacant with the hoards that ply on the route.  But finding a seat is possible at the starting points of Churchgate, CST or Virar etc.  If you board at any of the intermediate stations, you will never get a seat.  You are lucky if you manage to board the train at all.  There are just too many commuters for the limited trains on the circuits. My colleagues who travel daily from Nallasopara to Mumbai Central, always board the train at four in the morning and that too, the local that is headed backwards, to the starting point of Virar.  Then they continue to sit in the train and head back towards Mumbai Central.  That is the only way they say that it is possible to be in the train at all, because it gets too crowded to be able to board it at all, after that, even at the next stop of Nallasopara.

 I had to travel from Grant  Road station to Santa Cruz, for some administrative work.  Having managed to board the train, I felt relieved, since it was quite crowded.  All the seats were occupied,  fourth seats also.  Women were standing between seats and along the corridor between the seats and holding the above-head handles and standing between the entrances. A torture to breathe in their smelly armpits that were all around my face.   I got a support on the back of the side seats. 

My attention was diverted to some women shouting from the window seats that overlooked the neighbouring stationary train.  Some of them were shouting encouraging words and some were shouting 'nahee'.  As I craned my neck to find out the centre of their attention, I realized that a young boy was being urged by his mother to urinate at the entrance of the neighbouring train and the boy was hesitant.  But soon he overcame his shame on being encouraged by the women from our train too.  'Becharaa,  bhachcha hai.  Susu karne do nah.  Toilet bhi toh nahee stationpar.'  And then our train took off.

Then the train approached Dadar and what a mad rush ensued.  Women pushing their way in and others pushing their way out.  Abuses and screams and  expletives galore.  All the new entrants started asking the seated women where they would alight, and forming mutual bonds for reserving the seats when the present occupants would vacate them.  I was pinched, pressed, pushed and poked, by the women who alighted and the ones who boarded, in huge waves of onslaught. 

What a torture these travellers undergo daily.  For a novice local train traveller like me,  it is traumatic.  And among all the din of the crowd in the overfull bogie,  the background noise of the metal wheels pulling the train towards each station, the background announcements of the approaching stations,  the audio advertisements of Kubal Masale, was repetitively being played, as though all was well and hunky dory within the bogie.

What a relief it was to alight and be free of the confines of the melee.



 

5 - FACEBOOK

I was forced into learning to use a computer by my school.  All teachers, old ones, very old ones, young ones and the reluctant ones, had to complete a painfully obscure computer training at a certain training centre at Siddhi Vinayak, Dadar.  I recall that the journey to and fro was the most strenuous part of the month long venture. 

Before this, we already had a computer at home,  but my children banned me from using it.  The main reason was that I managed to hang it up every time,  or I would ask so many silly questions in order to complete my assignments that they would lose their patience with me.   And then, the cleaning of the dust off of the endless wires, which almost always left the computer unusable because something would be disconnected and then everything would be blank.  But that seems ages ago.  Now I am quite savvy in completing worksheets and test papers for the school on a computer.   I also use e-mail and I can brouse the internet and download videos with a little help.   Writing a blog is the latest challenge that I have taken.

The beginning was a disaster,  with different blogs that somehow got lost and could not be traced and then my daughter came to my rescue.   But now she says that Google will soon ban my blogs.  'Because mummy' she says, 
'you are not using correct punctuation.  And you are randomly leaving spaces between words.'  etc etc............When I retorted that Google would not bother with so many details,  she said that 'the bot' would detect all these mistakes.   'A bot',   really,   am I expected to believe that?   

Referring to facebook,  I am so so addicted to it.   I can converse with anyone anywhere on earth-wow!     The down side is that it has brought tears to my eyes and made me very vulnerable too.   THE MESSAGES are the most emotional quotient of anything that I have ever encountered.  My life now revolves around the message box of my facebook site.  I am able to get in touch with persons that I would never have spoken to, if not for fb.  So,  I type what I want to discuss and then the tick appears, as if by magic.  But when a tick fails to appear,  it is a mood-disaster.   I am unable to function normally until the tick appears and I know that my message has been read.    I read the return messages, and make decisions for so many important events.  The boy my daughter wants to marry contacted me via fb.  Now it is a rollercoaster of emotions,  will they or won't they marry.   The denials, the frustrations, the shared confessions and the impromptu jokes with little faces to send and receive called 'emotions'.

What a wonder is this technology.  Amazing!