The southwest monsoon is playing truant with Mumbai. It rained heavily a couple of days ago – a staggering 300 mm in a single spell. As always, it brought familiar scenes of flooded roads, fallen trees and massive traffic snarls. But since then, the rain gods seem to have vanished. Mumbaikars, however, have not lost faith. Across the metropolis, Hindus, Muslims and Christians are praying fervently to their respective gods to have mercy on the city and send rain. Their faith is indeed touching. Yet the heavens have remained silent. Perhaps nature is teaching us a grim lesson for cutting down trees, destroying mangroves and steadily reducing open spaces. One only wishes real estate developers, who are pulling down hundreds of old buildings and replacing them with massive towers, would come together to plant thousands of trees and nurture them. Time is simply not on Mumbai's side.
Justice gets a makeover | Salman Ansari
Murders on local trains deeply worrying, reflect rising stress
The brutal murder of a young man in a running local train last week should make all of us pause and reflect on where we are headed as a city. The 22-yearold was stabbed repeatedly simply because he wanted the train door to be closed. The killer was a man who had zero criminal record and what is worse is that he coolly got down at the next station, Borivali, and walked his way out as if nothing had happened. In another incident, a man was stabbed at Mahim after accidentally bumping into his attacker. Such episodes are becoming alarmingly frequent. The reasons for this deeply worrying situation are unknown, but one thing is for sure – as a city our stress levels are rising rapidly. Local trains can no longer cope with the ever-growing crush of commuters. Traffic jams have become a daily nightmare across Mumbai, while even basic civic amenities such as usable footpaths, functioning streetlights and an efficient bus system are fast becoming things of the past. The city simply lacks visionary and dynamic leadership.
Kudos to FDA chief Tukaram Mundhe
Tukaram Mundhe, the new Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), has demonstrated what a noncorrupt and dynamic head of an institution can achieve. Within a few weeks of taking charge, he has put the fear of gods into adulterators, gutkha sellers and other anti-social elements; who don't think twice about putting lives at risk just to satisfy their greed for money. We wish he would now turn his attention to the kitchens of restaurants – many of which are filthy to the core. The other day I had to walk through the kitchen of a suburban restaurant to access the loo and what I saw almost made me puke.
TAILPIECE: A wag remarked that our eggs are stronger than our MLAs and MPs, at least they don't break so easily! (Compiled by S Balakrishnan)
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