Mumbai Musings

Toll Talk

The state-wide protest called by Maharashtra Navanirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray against toll collection thankfully went off peacefully. Raj Thackeray was detained by police and released two hours later following an assurance by his party that it would call off its stir after the chief minister Prithviraj Chavan assured the MNS chief of a meeting to discuss the issue tomorrow, Thursday, morning itself. Mumbai police said Thackeray was detained to ensure that law and order in the city and state is maintained. Coincidentally, the agitation comes just two days before Valentine's Day when late Bal Thackeray used to unleash the Sena on the city in a pretty similar way. 

Photo by Richard Kamei
 

An Unlikely Protest 

Last week various student groups from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences came together to protest against the killing of Nido, a 20-year-old son of a Congress MLA and Parliamentary Secretary in Health and Family Welfare Department. He died after he was beaten up by some shopkeepers in New Delhi following an altercation sparked by their taunts on his hairstyle. The students and faculty, protesting against this killing, said that discrimination against people from the northeast is rampant and is usually directed towards their facial features. "The word "Justice" has to be reclaimed, in the sense that rather than simply asking for "Justice for Nido" we have to address the larger issues of exploitation and discrimination of people from Northeast and all minority groups. Dominance of religion, caste, gender, class, race should not be accepted at any cost. The state machinery, right from the Police to the Supreme Court should function in such a way that it takes the interest of all groups into consideration and not just favours a few based on its own biases. The students will rise up against all such oppressions and speak up at all possible forums for this," said their statement.

BMC Budget

Bigger, but not better? A municipal corporation run by Sena-BJP that is richer than many states of the country, acts rich too. With elections around the corner, the BMC commissioner presented a rather populist budget. No fare hikes or taxes were announced. The size of the budget buldged to Rs 31,178 crore, about 27% higher than last year's budget. The BMC has provided Rs 2,500 crore for reconstruction and improvement of what seems like the world's most potholed and dug-up roads. They have also decided to build public toilets for women with Rs 1 crore. A provision of Rs 540 crore for structural repairs and reconstruction of municipal buildings (after the collapse and death of 60 in Babu Genu Market) should appeal to many. But what seems to really appeal to the voter class is continuation of Octroi over Local Body Tax, which the chief minister tried to bring in unsuccessfully. 

Kudos to Kakade Kaka

The 94th Akhil Bharatiya Marathi Natya Sammelan (annual national theatre meet) was special. Normally marred by controversies over nominations of chairpersons, this year saw the unanimous election of Arun Kakade, the spine of Avishkar. Avishkar is a theatre group known for its experimental theatre. Popularly called Kakade Kaka, he has worked with Vijay Tendulkar, Arvind Deshpande and many other stalwarts of Marathi progressive theatre movement. But my favourite is the evergreen Durga Jhali Gauri, a lovely, colourful children's play.

Death Without A Cause

It isn't exam time yet and the horrible cycle of suicides has started already.  A 14-year-old student, unable to bear the pressure of unit test results, hanged himself to death. A class 9 student, Shubham Arya, worried that he would fail his exams took the extreme step without letting anyone know of his worries. He lived with his parents and younger brother. Turned out he had failed in two subjects just by a few marks.  Every year several students, worried about failure in exams, resort to killing themselves. A terrible indicator of fiercely competitive and aggressive education system, undue pressure and inability to cope with failure, one is reminded of the funeral in film Three Idiots, where a suicide is termed as a "murder" by the system.

Blockbuster Camaraderie

Recently two Marathi films broke all records. Duniyadari was the first to be the biggest hit, in recent times. It ran to full houses, even at popular shows (Marathi films usually get the step-motherly matinee shows). It was followed by Timepass, which broke the records set by Duniyadari. And in a rare gesture, it was team Duniyadari that organised a felicitation for team Timepass and gifted them a trophy. They want the trophy to be circulated among films that do well at the box-office. Now that's some spirit.

Parole Pe Parole? 

Actor and convict Sanjay Dutt has applied for further extension of his parole granted by the jail authorities. He has cited his wife Manyata's health as a reason for the request for extension. Reports say she has been operated for a tumour in her lungs and is at home, recovering. Out since December 21, Dutt has been by her side. With no disrespect to her health and his doting nature, one wonders if every "reformed" criminal in the country could get such treatment.

Dil Maange More

One week on, we haven't had enough of the cute pink mono rail. With its 500 plus trips, the mono rail has sold 1,32,523 tokens, collected a revenue of Rs 14,24,810 and ferried 1,36,865 passengers. 

What's in a Name?

While mono rail is up and about and more, the Mumbai Metro has now managed to get past one of the many hurdles. According to the DNA newspaper, "For almost a year now there have been differences between the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) and Reliance Infrastructure (RInfra) over labelling the 11.46 km long first metro corridor.

"Yes, RInfra has agreed to rename metro rail project as 'Mumbai Metro' from 'Reliance Metro'. The changes in project name at the stations and other locations will start soon," confirmed UPS Madan, metropolitan commissioner of MMRDA."

And the next deadline, we hear, is March 2014. Fingers crossed. Hope there are no more political, natural, social, economic causes for it to be delayed any further.