82 - BEING HUMAN . . .

Salman Khan's  clothes'  line of the 'being human' brand is very popular with a wide range of age groups.  Young school and college students sport the brand and so too middle aged persons.  But it is just for style,  not to support the spirit of it, as is obvious by the attitude of such persons.

I am a teacher and to be insulted by a stranger on Teachers' Day and that too on a public footpath, was a vicious blow to me.  Having been a teacher for the last twenty two years seems to have been so fruitless, because I could not even bring about a single change for the better, in spite of consistent efforts.

The footpath near my school is used like a road by two wheelers.  They ride over it and they park on it.  So many school children use this footpath, but the two wheeler riders are immune from any type of policing.  On this particular day, the footpath was teeming with students returning home and yet motorbikers were riding at high speed on the footpath because there was a traffic jam on the road.  I stopped a biker and told him that he should walk his bike and ride when he is back on the road.  After arguing for two minutes, he realized that I was adamant and that I would not let him pass, so   he complied.  Then another biker, sporting a 'being human' tee shirt,  came onto the footpath and without provocation began abusing me, with his mouth full of red paan spit.  He parked on the footpath and kept shouting against my stand with the previous biker.  I told him that he too was wrong to have ridden his bike onto the pavement, at which his tirade became louder and he started using foul language.  When I protested that he was the wrong doer and didn't deserve to wear a tee shirt saying 'being human', as he was being inhuman by abusing an older lady besides,  he shouted that I should keep my teaching for the school students inside the school premises only.  When I admonished him that hadn't he been taught manners and civic rules at school, during his youth, he mocked me by retaliating that he had been a student of the same school where I was teaching at present.  That was the last straw for me and I just felt so heart broken and could not argue with him anymore.

Just then a traffic policeman was walking on the road, and I approached him, hoping that he would intervene or at least tell off the rude 'being inhuman' person.  But the policeman walked off faster than me and I realized that he wanted to avoid confrontation.  I followed him till the end of the road where the main traffic signals at a cross road of six main roads stalled him.  I requested him as to why he had walked off from the scene of argument, and he said that 'yeh elaakah unkah hai, hum kuch naheeh kar sakteh'.  So I asked to know his name, but he covered his nameplate with his hand and hurried off into the traffic.

This proves that the police are quite incompetent to control thugs in this particular area, mostly because they are backed by political honchos of the same community.  Even the E ward municipal office has not bothered to fix bollards along the footpath, to keep two wheelers off the pavement. In fact the edges of the pavement have slopes for easy access to two wheelers to be able to speed onto the footpath.  Repeated reminders have not rendered effective action from the E ward office.  But they have taken extra precautions to fix a double row of bollards outside the gate of their own office premises, which is just across the corner.

Civics, as a subject, has been side lined in schools.  I think that it should be compulsory upto the tenth and it should involve students into the practical application of its tenets.  That and that only will lead to a better India.  Students should be made aware of how the machinery of a ward office works, so that they can use it to better the situation in their own residential areas.  They must be taught the power that can be wielded by the BMC if they wish to implement it or are prodded into doing so.

69 - MUMBAI CABBIE

I became aware of how LPG gets filled into a vehicle, only recently.  After sitting in a cab, if the cabbie requests that he has to get gas as the red light is blinking, indicating that the gas is depleted, then one does not have much of a choice. 

If  the passenger is a long distance traveller, then a conversation is mandatory.  Usually it begins with a rueful remark about the potholes that the cab traverses through.   Marol roads are bad,  Parla roads are full of potholes, but Kurla is the worst.    By the time we reached Santa Cruz east, my body was shaken and stirred.  How is it that the entire airport access roads are full of potholes but within the airport premises, the roads are perfect?

This cabbie had just left a passenger at the airport and having received a generous fare and tip, he was in a good mood.  The passenger had wanted to do the rounds of Shahrukh Khan and Salman's homes and then return to the airport, in a round trip.  The cabbie confided that Shahrukh Khan's Mannat bungalow is a very popular spot with selfie seekers and he often takes other state visitors to the spot, but it is such a  anticlimax moment for the visitors, according to the cabbie, because there is only a dirty, barren   wall to witness, with the word Mannat displayed, with which the visitors console themselves by taking a selfie.  Surely, both the famous Bollywood Khans can make visits of fans more worthwhile by offering some refreshments, autographed pics, or CDs etc to these ardent visitors from far off states.  The cabbie said that many of these fans take a detour to Mumbai, and fly in, just to visit star homes.  I wonder what the situation in Hollywood and Down under is, for visitors to star homes?

During the duration of my journey in the cab, the conversation veered towards the sweetmeat shop that I directed him towards, Gaurishankar at Parel.  I could not recall the name, but the cabbie helped me out, as it is a very popular outlet.  And then he went on to tell me that he had diabetes and so could not enjoy sweetmeats anyway.  Originally from Jharkhand, this cabbie went on to philosophise  that life in Mumbai city was very hectic and the main reason for his malady.  He listed all the details of his medical tests and all the various natural remedies available.   I endured a short lecture on the reasons for the high percentage of diseases in modern times.

I refute his claim, there are so many other reasons for any malady.  Especially emotional turmoil and anxiety, caused by 'others', besides environmental side-effects.                                         

62 - INTEGRITY???

It is  such a contradiction when the 'great' Salman Khan, the 'king maker' of actor's careers, tweets :     

""How these kids grow up so soon... ALWAYS keep giving your best #ZAHERO no matter what. Stand tall and always bend backwards for those u love and those who love u, Yeh yaad rakhna that the most important thing in life is Respect and Loyalty. @iamzahero""


In the same breath as the person who launched Katrina, Sonakshi Sinha and Sooraj Pancholi??

Mr Salman Khan,  How can you support a rascal like Sooraj, who showed no respect, and no loyalty to the girl who has given him all her love, Jiah Khan.

Wake up Sir, be fair in all your dealings, and then we shall believe what you tweet.

60-PM MR.MODI'S SWATCHCHTAA ABHIYAAN......BLEH.......MY EXPERIENCES

Posting advertisement videos and print media sloganeering is not enough to motivate people to keep their surroundings clean.  The rich people are not bothered and will discard bottles and used tissue and food containers and cans, from their car windows.   The poor are not bothered either.  They will urinate at any 'secluded' spot or any corner of the road or between parked cars, and they will spit any where and from any place.  Shopkeepers throw rubbish just outside their shop and no one can do anything about it.

Often there is no choice, but to throw wrappers and containers onto the space away from your own.  Especially train and bus travellars, prefer to discard rubbish through the window of their vehicle, rather than into the vehicle.  No one is bothered to put rubbish into their bags.  Travelling by train, all passengers throw used paper teacups, vadapau paper trays,  soiled newspaper of samosas or vadas, empty pet water bottles, bhel wrappers, biscuit and chocolate wrappers, etc.  The rubbish crescendoes just after Dadar, Karjat, Lonavla. How else should the travellers discard their rubbish?  When you travel in the Japanese bullet train or on the train up the Swiss alps, each bogie has a garbage bin, but then there are limited passengers, only as many as can be seated.  No standees are allowed.  On Indian trains, if one is lucky enough to get into the train and stand, sit or squeeze between co-travellers, then you are lucky.

So, the message given by the governing bodies that plastic needs to be banned,  but all the garbage is not  plastic.  Even paper rubbish is an eyesore and an environmental hazard.

If one travels by any local train or outstation train from Mumbai,  it is a horrible sight to look out of the window.  The worst is Ulhasnagar, because it is extremely full of garbage and even the stench is unbearable.  How do the people there survive and remain healthy, is beyond belief.

The defecating and urinating on the train tracks has not diminished.   When the slum dwellers have to sleep on footpaths or roads, where are they expected to defecate?  Urban beggars and slum dwellers, defecate on plastic bags and then push it into any drain, the cover of which they manage to pry open.

I am not a homeless person, but even I have a problem of not getting to use a public facility when needed urgently.  Some of the bad spots are CST terminus, Churchgate station, Crawford Market, Gateway, Byculla, Fountain, Mumbai university, and of course any local railway station.  Even if the loos are available, for pay and use, the doors are broken, or they are soiled, or unclean, too crowded, not safe as the doors of the loos are broken, or the ladies loos are locked, etc.   The Zoo has been renovated with an ugly facade, sporting snakes, but the toilets are only accessible to the security guards, public has to use the badly maintained prehistoric loos inside the zoo, horrible!  Shop till you drop at Colaba Causeway and then control your urge to urinate, unless you want to stand in an endless line at the public loo near the Gateway, or use the one at the Macdonalds outlet or Westside.

MLAs and MPs should visit the public loos and check out the sorrowful state that most of them are in.  Maybe Salman Khan should visit the CST loo and improve it, like he did to the prison loos that he had experienced.  Please sir, the governing bodies, especially the Shiv Sena, is indifferent to the problems of the public,  you could do yeoman service instead.  Of course, the Big B only wants to be featured in expensive ads about public defecation etc,  only if were to walk on the road and visit a loo at any station, or travel in a local train,  then I would believe all that he advertises, otherwise your swatchch Bharat ad campaign  is just Modi-worship-Modi-appeasement.  No one would urinate on the road, if the alternative was feasible, available and reachable.

I wonder if the high and mighty, the government 'lal batti' politicians, rich and very rich actors, directors, business persons, who have drivers, every worry about them when they wait in the parked cars, about facilities available for their use.

38 - THE QUEEN OF THE SUBURBS

Today, I had to travel by the local train upto Virar for some official work.  I only travel by the local train if I have to go very far, very fast, as compared to slow bus travel.  Since I seldom travel by the local train,  the experiences and scenes flash into my senses and get analyzed into statistics.

Although it was a Saturday, being a half day for most office goers and an off day for many academic institutes,  the train was very crowded.  But today, in the crowded ladies' compartment, a good samaritan actually offered me a seat for some time and stood all that while, and then even advised me as to the best place to stand, in order to avoid the onslaught of the incoming crowds that kept boarding the train upto Nallasopara.  It made me so happy to have this empathetic lady share her seating time for a while.

The bad memory was when the train approached Bandra,  the litter along the boundaries of the tracks was disgusting and demoralising and smelly.  An assault on the senses.   How can human beings live in that filth?  The entire length of the track, almost one kilometer before Bandra station, is lined with slums and beyond their ramshackle abodes are piles and piles of plastic, paper, thermocole, rags, and rotting vegetable waste.  Rats, flies and God knows what other pests are breeding in that area.   Please please, Bandra residents,  make the approach to your suburb clean and green.  I beseech to all its famous and rich residents, the Bollywood big shots etc, all visitors need to feel a sense of the 'Queen of the suburbs',  and you should make an effort to live upto its name.  Mr Shahrukh Khan, you have recorded a TV ad about 'swachch bharat',  but you only care for your bungalow and your home in Dubai,  you must GIVE towards improving the suburb that has brought you fame,  but it only has the shame of being a filthy public space mostly.

And then when Vasai was announced on the intercom system in the train,  the nose and eyes had another stinky onslaught from a sewage oulet or a large 'nalla'.   The only saving grace was that, the monsoons have turned the open areas into lush green growth.  So wherever we can view the greenery through the moving train, it is so beautiful and clean.

The local trains are the 'lifeline' of Mumbai but all along the tracks are 'deathlines' of filth, poverty, garbage and open air toilets.  Dear Salman Khan, you sent tankers of water to the drought-affected districts of Marathwada, yet you fail to notice the poverty and squallor of the poor in your very own neighbourhood?  I feel that 'Being Human' does not mean that Mumbai only gets the expensive stores with that logo, but that you do the humanitarian work for Mumbaikars too, please.  Do not forget that it is this city that has brought you your name, fame and where you have grown up.  You could give back by maybe, building good homes for the railway line squatters.   It will also be a more lasting contribution towards society, than the water donation that you had undertaken in 2013 to the drought hit Beed district.

October the second has been declared as THE cleanliness drive day for all Bharat,  and there will be lots of photo ops by politicians and richie riches like MsNeeta Ambani and her ilk.  But nothing really really effective at all.  Nothing that would deplete their pockets,  only silly whitewashed news stories, with brooms and buckets and expensive gloves, for maybe 5 to 10 minutes, just as long as it takes the cameras to flash.  If only each celebrity or large company, would adopt the wards, then it would lead to concrete progress towards cleanliness.  Mr.Amitabh Bachchan, you could easily adopt B ward, and it could be the 'Big B' B ward and compete with the Salman Khan A ward etc.  And the great Neeta Ambani C ward, and the Katrina Kaif D ward.  Not forgetting a E ward takeover by the great Kapil Sharma,  he will of course then be forgiven all the 'gapla' he did at his Versova flat.  And the likes of Anil Kapoor, who only want to rake in the moolah and the name and fame without any give back to society.  You have launched your daughter and now your son,  pray please do spend on beautifying the city that adores your every action and relative.  Come on people, Gandhiji is still revered all over the world, you could be revered at least in your 'karmbhoomi'.

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33 - SELFIE CRAZE

Every four years,  we Indians look forward to our participants winning any medal at the olympics.  But for the rest of the time, no one cares to nurture atheletes.  Of course, there are a few who nurture themselves and are nurtured by a few dedicated coaches.  That is not the way gold medalists thrive.  Talent has to be recognised and rewarded and encouraged.

Today, as I was watching a TV show called 'dance India dance',  the agility and grace of the various participants was so exemplary and of such a high level.  With correct coaching and guidance, any of them could be gymnasts and could win an olympic medal.  A dancer called Tanmay was exceptional. 

Indians will do anything if only they have a goal in sight.  If we want an olympic swimmer, then we should have easily available swimming pools.  Atheletes need to practice running on a track.  I recall, when my children were younger,  they desperately wanted to swim.  The YMCA only allows holiday learning camps for kids,  that too with 'recommendation' through patrons.  Their school would have a lucky draw and limit the wanna be swimmers to a limited number.  The sport's club at Haji Ali wanted one crore for membership and then only one could use their swimming pool.  The Mumbai Gymkhana declared that they had no spots for any more members even if one crore was offered.  The Mafatlal swimming pool at chowpatty is open only for hindus and Jains.  And the public swimming pool at Dadar,  declared that they had a waiting list for the next four years.  The police swimming pool at worli is only for police personnel and their families.   It was  a futile effort.

Salman Khan can share the limelight by announcing a money award for the participants, and Neeta Ambani can get brownie points on the newshour by some sugary comments on the girls who won medals for India.  Can they do some real contribution by promoting sports regularly?  Even Ramdev baba was quoted congratulating the girls who won.  Dear Ramdevji,  open a swimming pool and a track field and other sports courts and then take credit and share the limelight of the winners. The great Amitabh Bachchan also made it a point to share the kudos with his tweet, of wanting a selfie with the girls who won.  Can you do something for others Mr. Big B, like donating  cash towards a good training gymn for girls who want to train?

Until ordinay Indians, with a spark of sportmanship, are not kindled into a strong flame,  India will always remain medal-less at the olympics of the world.