HIT ME BABY ONE MORE TIME

Dhimant Negandhi
24 August 2005


Hanging in between the economic utopia of the dragon and Uncle Sam is the spirit of the devoted Indian, to be precise, that of a Mumbaikar.

The vociferous city labeled as the economic capital of India has made a mock of itself lately. And when I say the city, I include me, you and every anthropoid who has gained a slightest bit from the ‘City Of Dreams’ or shall I now say A Nightmare
.
Momentarily we are forced by the incumbents to dream of the Shanghais and the Tokyos, moments exist when every Mumbaikar’s eye reflects the Yens,Yuans and plump Dollars. And yet in a flash these reflections seem like a hallucination ,and the eyes now reflect slums, a deluge that washed away homes, an epidemic that washed away the residents of those homes and above all a reflection of text that will stay forever “We are not safe………….”

But in recent years I have grown up a lot in terms of optimism, so the adage by the SWAMI echoes in my ears “Be not afraid of growing slowly, but fear standing still”
As Swami Vivekananda says we need to move slowly but surely towards a better future as conditions around us change. Also there is a song by the Scorpions that plays in my mind. It is like a repartee to the problems faced by Mumbai lately. Titled “Winds of Change”, two important lines in the lyrics say

‘Don’t you dare give up,
Listen to the Winds of Change’

The matter of fact is that every one of us is listening and is aware of what is going on but what we are unaware of is what to do next? The question to be answered now remains Can we do something to save the spirit of Mumba Devi ? And if yes who is dominantly going to be this ‘us’?
The truth is that in the great deluge that occurred, every weakling of this city was exposed at the same time.” Truth is Naked” as Shakespeare rightly quotes. We the people blamed the government, the government blamed the Civic authorities, so did the Media and then comes to the forefront the sorry state of affairs that the BMC is crippled with. The ecologists talked about this being a consequence of playing with natural resources, protests for better electricity supply and water supply were raised, protests about the poor condition of the roads were raised. Concerns were shown by one and all for the people without food and water supplies.
There is no doubt in my mind that these were issues of concern and I am as concerned for all of them as any average altruistic citizen of Mumbai but can we just neglect the fact of prime importance?
If and only if and I repeat, If and only if, Bombay..oops.. Mumbai had a better drainage system that is if it could drain the excess of water at a rate twice that of what it does currently, all the other concerns would become either tertiary or extinct.
The solution sounds so simple,does not it? But what we fail to realize is that the failure to implement the solution is due to the rigid bureaucratic setup of our government offices. And this bureaucracy comes as an accompaniment with America’s gift to this world and that is Democracy.

Someday I would like to stand up and question the integrity and the greatness of democracy as I on a personal note do not believe that democracy is the ultimate system for a nation’s well being. And I have profound belief in Human Creativity to come up with a better solution at least a better version of the current democratic process.
But for now I am fine with democracy. My plea to the government both at the state and at the centre, Get the money from the government treasury or from the World Bank or whatever…and Forgive me if I sound apathetic but build up a drainage system for my city ,our city and give Bombay…oopss… Mumbai its share of the Economic pie it deserves.
And if in the future if you would kindly settle down to primogeniture issues rather than suffering from the neurosis of changing names of cities, airports and Railway Terminals,
So that every Mumbaikar can say fearlessly to the Rain Gods,
“HIT ME BABY ONE MORE TIME”!