WE HAVE RS 300 CRORE TO SPARE?

The first person to vehemently object the 321 ft statue of Shivaji Maharaj to be built in the Arabian Sea, 1 km off Marine drive in Mumbai, at a cost of Rs. 300 Crore would have been Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj himself!

To the “King of the People” who gave importance primarily to the welfare of the people and administration of the state, such an extravagant expense by the state government at a time when as many as 221 talukas in 27 districts have been declared drought prone, more than 40 farmer suicides have taken place in the last three weeks and there have been reports of 3,000 child malnutrition deaths in tribal areas would have been acrimonious.

Those in favor of this massacre of reasonability are contesting that the city needs monuments that will serve as Tourist attractions and thus rake in the income through tourism. It is observed by those in power that Gateway of India as well as Bollywood star mansions have now become redundant and hence tourists landing in Mumbai head immediately to Rajasthan or Kerala. Reasonable as this may be one needs to point out a very conveniently overlooked point to these state administrators that although a delicious dessert makes for a fitting end to any dinner, it makes no sense at all if the dinner is rubbish and the dessert excellent!!! In this case the dinner is the day to day working of the city, the welfare of the state and its residents and the dinner ofcourse are tourist attractions!

Where shall I start venting my anger from? The roads? Or the make shift patches that one fills them with making them further disheveled and jerky? The health facilities that were seen stretched in the recent event of swine flu? The garbage cleaning networks? The hutments under the sparkling flyovers? The non-availability of toilets for woman? Men are ofcourse to pee on roads or latrines with no doors, right? Thane I believe is still reeling under daily power cuts. And yes, should I even dare to venture into crime and TERRORISM measures in the city???

Yes, the British built the current monuments that the city boosts off but they did that after or simultaneously while giving complete attention to the planning and working of the city. They did not build monuments at the cost of the city and state administration! Oh, let’s not draw comparisons for it gets embarrassing after a point to praise the British.

All the same the point is very simple and clear if it’s not been drawn across yet- the statue is good from the tourism point of view BUT there should be another 10 years before it can be considered. There are other far important areas that need the 300 Crore right now!

And I have not even touched the environmental angle yet considering we are going to nail it all in the sea! Shall we stop messing with nature please? It might just turn back and smack us so hard that we won’t be able to take it for sure!!

Jai Maharashtra.

EVOLUTION!

There is some beauty in the circle, the round which connects the beginning and the end. It symbolizes the never ending quality of the cosmos. On and on and on and on it goes with no definite start or end…

The human race in its last phase- as we know- came out from the forest. We began from the darkness and headed towards light (FIRE)….towards motion and speed (WHEEL). That was our evolution and we always perceived it as progress. An ascending movement which we were so proud off. Today I wonder as to what it really was…

The progress required us to create a lot of our resources for which we needed large processing units and industries. The space had to be acquired for our growing needs which we justified under progress and we did so by depleting acres and acres of green cover. Today we have a severely bad monsoon and the first reason for this is lack of green cover!

We don’t have water now for all the luxuries we provided for ourselves through our intelligence and progress. All our appliances which stood as symbols of our greatness as creators have emitted gases that have affected the ozone layer and caused the glaciers to melt in large scales! The water levels are rising in the sea and our cities and shores will drown in water despite us having water shortages!

We made the wheel to travel fast and smooth. Today we have the cheapest car but we don’t have roads to drive it on or space to park it in!! walking today if made a part of life will come across as cost effective, healthy and a logical way of commuting!!

The rich and the busiest declare to have got saturated and exhausted. They head to nature to unwind and recharge their batteries. Is it not from there (the nature) that we escaped to create our own world?

Its amusing how we never seem to realize very genuinely that we are not controlling much and should not even try to pretend to because every time we have taken ourselves too seriously…we have suffered!

From the minuscule events in our very personal life to the larger issues of community and society- man’s ego has disillusioned him and failed his reasoning and instincts.

Today we are screwing nature and nature soon is going to start fucking us. As and when that happens it’ll be time for us to call it quits…and all our progress, intelligence and planning is going to be shoved up our arses finishing us all under the term that we have so far called- Evolution!