Today, due to several reasons (90% of them related to governance and power squabbles aka as Politics), the city is not just losing it's glory and charm but HAS LOST almost 90% of it.
I have lived in Bombay for the last 15 years - it seems a long time.. but time has just flown past - grappling with simple issues.
Along the way I have seen the city change from being a sophisticatedly clean and well managed city to now being termed a rogue and utterly mismanaged dumping ground.
The deterioration has been noticed by several people.
People who have called this city their home but no longer live here on a permanent basis still talk only about the nostalgic days and times they spent, not about how the city has transformed and morphed.
This transformation has been clearly from the good to the present bad to the upcoming worse - almost like the transformation of a home trained and bred pet dog becoming a street mongrel - an owner-less situation that turns the dog unkempt and wild and totally disillusioned and disconnected from it's past glory.
Bombay is being held at ransom - the true spirit of Bombay that is.
When we talk of the true spirit of Bombay, as Prahlad Kakkar mentioned in his recent HT article, the true spirit of the city was it's acceptance of the thorough professional. Anyone who was good in their profession was accepted here and they were the ones who gave this city that character.
No longer the case.
The city, being part of the bigger state of Maharashtra has actually been given (and unfortunately easily accepted), a step- motherly treatment just because of it's professionalism and growth.
Here comes the root cause if you will, which I see as the driving force behind all this mayhem.
It's the difference in the attitude, in the culture of the people who were originally a part of this professional city vs. those who saw the city's growth as an opportunity to bask in the glory without understanding the spirit that brought this glory
- these people arrived and just dumped themselves into all nooks and corners of this city generating the huge number of slums.
You notice these types of people around mostly - the kind that are happy to work and produce results if they have a good manager, a manager who understands the big picture and can understand that each of the team member is happy to do their bit and the manager can put these bits together for the big picture.
This was the constituency of Bombay of the yesteryears - from the common man's perspective.
The common man, so uniquely captured by R. K. Lakshman was the one who wanted things to go on smoothly as long as (s)he worked hard for him/herself and in parallel contributing to the big picture. The simple story of life - if you want to call it so.
Then came this whole change factor. Maybe the media wanted to take some credit for it, they started touting India's prowess and shone the spotlight on Bombay, calling it the Financial Capital of the city.
The public of this nation has been very gullible since time immemorial - and so was the common man. They lapped up the story about this city being the best of the cities of the country.
So the influx began. People started making this city a destination of sorts. People from all strata of life came in to try their luck - at the stock market, at the movie industry, and all the ancillary areas that would support this influx.
Here thus, the opportunistic politician sensed in this - vote bank numbers.
Mind you, as they say 'ghar ka bhedi lanka dhaye', 'an insider's hand' - these things would not be possible without someone from within making things happen. And who but the wily local politician was the insider.
The political parties who want to have ownership of the city's vote bank have played it very cleverly to own this piece of fortune to themselves.
The politicians knew that the professionals who were in this city were able to see through their guise of deception that they don to garner votes and then disappeared.
The alternative way was to bring in the vote bank from outside, into the city, give them enough than where they came from, keeping them just about happy and thus get to rule the roost.
That is what has happened under the able guidance of the incapable municipal governance which is NOT run by professionals, the transportation and infrastructure projects which are NOT run by professionals.
- What has been run by professionals was well managed and it has shown positive results.
- What has been run by lumberheads has shown a degradation in all aspects - be it transportation, logistics, infrastructure - the works.
Today in Bombay thus, you find more people who have come from a certain part of the nation who form a very strong vote bank for the politicians who also have originated from those parts. These people are the ones who are crowding the city, it's infrastructure, everything of it, in a huge way.
It is these people, who are willing to live in the worst of situations, without sanitation or basic amenities, running the autos, taxis, who are the security guards for buildings - all key areas that really matter for the 'hoi polloi and those who live by dependency. It is these people who are crowding into the city.
And the city is bursting at it's seams.
But the biggest and the strongest factor that has led to this situation is the laid back, i-don't-care-two-hoots attitude of the locals, who allowed this to happen.
Locals, who worked in government agencies, transportation dept, RTO, the municipal corporation etc. allowed themselves to be 'influenced' by outsiders, for their own short term gratification, avoiding hard work (which the outsiders were willing to do for almost nothing), wanting to just work fixed times and then relax.
None of the locals you would find working as security guards, or drive autos or taxis. Why?? because their egos come in the way, they find these jobs to be very debasing. But they are all willing to go around causing vandalism on others whom they allowed to in the very first place.
It is this laid back attitude that allowed the outsiders to take advantage of the insiders and make way into every corner and aspect of running/ruining the city.
So the story of Bombay, as now the story of several other cities is about the conflict between professionals who should ideally be the real guides of a city's progress vs. the not-so-professionals who are pouring into the cities but only to "make hay as the sun shines". And in this conflict, the professionals are suffering because they have seen professional life around the world, and expect the same in their home - India. These huge adjustments to the Indian non-professionalism in all facets makes it difficult to accept India as a growing economy or for that matter as a professional place to work in. In short, a professional city is being held ransom at the hands of unprofessionals - the politicians, builders, thugs, slum dwellers, you name them. The ultimate solution is that the professionals of today take alternative routes and get into governance and make the change, rather than wait for the change to happen. The common man needs to rise for the common cause - a huge sacrifice that probably the existing generations do not have the gut for.
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