RIP, Maximum City?

-
Of late, I've been disturbed with how Bombay/Mumbai is turning out to be. I love the city to death (appropriate, no?) but increasingly I'm running out of reasons to defend my love for it. They say it's the city where dreams come true. But whose dreams? The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. 

And those in between? Well, we are basically fucked. 


The common man - or woman - is helpless. Everything seems to run in this vicious circle. People give bribes, people take bribes. People want a corruption-free system but are forgetting we are the system. If we don't stand up for what is right, if we don't speak out against injustice, then who will? The politicians? Judiciary? Police? But who put them in those positions in the first place? Think about it.

Maximum City, can you magically revive yourself? Any more of this disillusionment and I will give up.

Sincerely,
~j~

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

postcard from j: blog, sweat and tears

-
A storm is brewing in the Indian blogosphere. And the winds have finally got my brain out of the freezer. Its no longer JAM Magazine versus IIPM. Its Bloggers versus IIPM. Much like the Super Series between Australia and ICC World XI. However, this promises to be a much more exciting affair. At the heart of the controversy is JAM 's expose on IIPM's tall claims in their ads. When Gaurav Sabnis blogged about it, he got slapped with a legal notice for allegedly defaming the Arindham Chaudhari-run institute. Meanwhile, Rashmi 's blogpost was inundated with obscene comments about her sexual preferences. Gaurav, on the other hand, took a courageous stand to defend his opinion and quit his job at IBM when he learnt that IIPM students had threatened to burn laptops supplied by IBM. He did not want his employer to be dragged into murky waters. All this has not gone down too well with the blogging community who view this as a violation of our fundamental right to speech . And...
Read more

Postcard from Pune: Ladh, Jhagadh, Aage Badh...

-
Image
Wow, I haven't posted in over two months and I'm wondering if there has been anything interesting to blog about since that last post. Well, I had a lovely Diwali weekend (three days!) in Pune visiting a close friend who's in the family way. And a mad cousin accompanied me, so it was just fun-fun-fun. Aside from lining up outside Kayani Bakery at 7.30 AM for mawa cakes/Shrewsbury biscuits (and some more goodies) and battling a Diwali crowd at Chitale Bandhu for their famed bakharwadi , I had the opportunity to visit Fort Jadhavgadh . An erstwhile Maratha fort now converted into a heritage hotel, this almost-impromptu trip turned out to be a super break from the urban landscape of Pune and of course, Mumbai. The steps leading up to the fort's main entrance The story in short Shahu, the grandson of Chhatrapati Shivaji (the great Maratha warrior king) was imprisoned for 21 years by the Mughals and later released. One of his prominent army commanders, Pila...
Read more

Massage Raju

-
Image
Walking around Bombay certainly has its rewards. Like this little gem we found on the sidewalk of a badly traffucked (Twitter term for being stuck in terrible traffic) lane of Bandra last weekend: Massage Raju! Was that a title? Or a sentence where "massage" is a verb? Ewww... And then S used G's phone to call the advertiser in question who said something about doing "chest massages" which left us in splits. Maybe madame can update us on the actual conversation sometime soon...?
Read more