Even if things are not getting better on time, focus on how India has 'improved'. It's what the newspaper ads want you to do anyway
The Monorail is three years old now and, when I last checked, was losing Rs 8.5 lakh a day because a mere 16,000 people were using it regularly
I have been told India is getting better with every passing day. Full-page advertisements in most newspapers have been informing me about it all week, so it must be true. I don't know where the money for all these advertisements comes from, but I'm told there's no point asking because these questions may not be answered in the near future. I'm told it's the content of the advertisements that counts, not the cost, so I continue to pay my taxes diligently in the hope that every government will continue to use this money wisely and tell me about how things are getting better around me.
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Many people have informed me that it will be easier than ever to get from one point of Bombay to the other in the near future. There will be all kinds of flyovers and Metros, Monorails and hovercrafts to make this possible. We will all zip past each other quickly, apparently, because all these projects are going to "change our city forever". I have tried to point out that a large number of flyovers have been built in my city over the past couple of decades, but traffic has only been getting worse. I have mentioned the fact that people now have to leave earlier than ever before to get to work on time, but this has been dismissed as a subjective opinion. I'm wrong, everyone tells me. Haven't I been seeing those advertisements? I must trust the advertisements.
The Monorail is three years old now and, when I last checked, was losing Rs 8.5 lakh a day because a mere 16,000 people were using it regularly. This doesn't matter though, because it still makes Bombay look like a world-class city. It doesn't matter if there appears to have been no thought whatsoever about where the Monorail goes, or how it connects to other means of public transport, because 16,000 people love it. The other 20 million people who don't use it haven't been reading those advertisements.
The Metro is used by a lot more by people - 3.55 lakh commuters on weekdays, according to a report published a week ago - but is still a lakh-and-a-half short of the 5.13 lakh estimated by the Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation. It reportedly lost Rs 79 lakh a day in 2016, but this shouldn't be a problem because why look at economics when everything is getting better?
The street connecting SV Road in Andheri West to Link Road is no longer usable, because construction of the Metro helped turn half of it into an unofficial market. This happened because no one thought it through, as usual, and the project missed 10 deadlines before becoming operational. The new Metro lines have deadlines too, naturally, but we shouldn't take them seriously. We should focus on how things are getting better for us instead, even if they aren't getting better on time.
Meanwhile, people are being
arrested for their eating habits, and a few have even been held for protesting against the cutting of trees. If you look past the full-page advertisements in these newspapers, and check out the pages inside, you will find that a large number of trees, which have been around for decades, are being cut and hauled away. They are to be transplanted, but activists are struggling to come up with proof of the transplantation actually taking place. Around 5,000 trees are proposed to be cut in various parts of the city for the Colaba-Bandra-SEEPZ Metro Line 3 project alone. We shouldn't have a problem with this though, because they say the green cover is being reduced only for our benefit. Our lives are getting better, after all, and everyone knows trees are overrated.
Mangroves are overrated too, which is why so many of them have been destroyed to make way for illegal slums populated by people who elect specific politicians to power in exchange for the right to continue occupying those spaces. A wall is to be built to protect mangroves now, which many people have been saying is a bad idea, but what do they know? They haven't been reading those advertisements.
I suppose the point I'm trying to make is this — we now live in a country where news reports are dismissed depending on who we support politically. We have begun to turn away from facts because fiction makes it easier for us to sleep at night. I don't know why we should bother reading newspapers anymore. We should just read these paid advertisements instead.
When he isn't ranting about all things Mumbai, Lindsay Pereira can be almost sweet. He tweets @lindsaypereira. Send your feedback to mailbag@mid-day.com
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