Yesterday Mr. Dhamankar came overe to collect his bill. A mild mannered gentleman, he is one of those rare beings who’d is truly content with life. And no he is not a 100 years old but my contemporary who still looks as though he’s passed out of Engineering College. As a civil engineer, Mr. Dhamankar gets to see parts of Mumbai which I can never hope to see like the top of Sukh Sagar a building at Hughes Road, where he had gone to fix the water tank which was on the terrace. He told us it took him all of 45 minutes to get there by bus from his house at Girgaon. Now at the best of times this distance of a mile and a half would have taken him 10 minutes by foot but as his shins were aching he decided to bus it. Since it was Saturday, he thought the buses would be empty and the roads emptier. How wrong he was!
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Bird’s eye viewIt was the Saturday of the funeral of the recently departed Syedna and all his followers who were upward of a million people were literally out on the streets. Initially, the night before there was a stampede at the Syedna’s Malabar Hill residence where the mourners had come in the thousands to pay their respects to their leader. With just a narrow road leading to his house this was bound to happen. As Mr. Dhamankar put it, from Opera House till as far as his eye could see, there was no sign of road, it was absolutely covered with people standing shoulder to shoulder.This jam was all over South Bombay getting more dense towards the Crawford Market area where most of the Bohris live.Ineptitude or Political Correctness?The Syedna’s passing away was made known to all so I am amazed that the Bombay Police didn’t think they needed to make arrangements like diverting traffic making Public announcements about road congestion and generally regulating the flow of human movement on the road. As usual their excuse for their ineptitude was that they didn’t anticipate such crowds but surely they know how to deal with a crisis situation ?After the Terrorist Attack of 26/11 our police and other governmental agencies were supposed to Hve undergone extensive training in Disaster Management. While mourners on the road is not a disaster surely this phenomenon is extraordinary and calls for more efficient management ? I wonder how many such unmanageable events will it take for our civic administrators to learn how to efficiently manage a crisis? Is it really ineptitude or is political correctness hampering their efficiency? Or is it sheer misunderstanding of the word disaster that prevented them from putting their disaster management training into action?Whatever happened to technology?Whatever it is,it is a shame that in this day and age when technology is so advanced and affordable that every citizen on the road has a mobile phone , the government can’t effectively handle crowds and has to watch “helplessly” as the city comes to a grinding halt!
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This morning there was more activity than usual. There were balloons
at the entrance and there were tables with
tea caddies and paper cups set up near the garages. Suddenly a whole load of
people came rushing up the slope.
It was the Mumbai Marathon that
brought everyone out on the streets running
for their lives. And for miles and miles too! I feel sorry for those poor bi-peds.
What happens when one leg goes lame? Or they pull a muscle? Do they still
hobble till the end?
But I am beginning to digress like Kimi’s mistress– who goes back
to the beginning of time when you ask her a question. Actually it was Kimi’s
mistress who caused all the trouble today. You see, today the entire building
had come down to watch the people run past. They stood on the side of the road
and made such a racket with whistles and hooters but when I tried to open my
mouth and bark, I was told shut up! I couldn’t even wag my tail!“Stop Sasha, you’ll spill my tea!” or “You’ll
frighten all the children. Don’t bark!” And she kept on talking to Kimi’s
mistress blah blah blah and even more blah completely forgetting that I needed to go to the loo.
“Stop whimpering,” she said shortly to me when I tried
to remind her that I had a job to do. “Stop acting like a baby,
shweetie..” she said blowing a kiss and Kimi’s mistress smiled
mid blah and said ” Oooh my chhooooo cuuuute” and went back to
blabbing.That really did it! What could I do? I lifted my leg and eased myself.“EEEEEEEEEE” screamed Kimi’s mistress as the warm jet
trickled down her leg. “You wicked, wicked dog!” and ran up the slope as
fast as she could.“Cheee! Shasha! BAD BOY”
said my mistress with four sharp whacks on my rump. I pretended to be sad but was
secretly pleased and relieved. After all a dog’s got to do what a dog’s got to
do!This post is definitely not the view of the author who admires all those Marathoners who keep on running! Running is hard work and truly meant for those of strong will and stronger legs and heart!
This post is a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda.
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In the 1986 FIFA Quarter final World Cup match between Argentina and England, Diego Maradona scored a goal by using his hand – a goal made more famous by him calling it “The Hand of God”.
Over the past seven years that I’ve been associated with St.Jude India ChildCare Centres, Mumbai, I’ve seen how the Hand of God actually works. Our founder Mr. NK has a deep abiding faith in the Hand of God which has always come to the rescue of our organisation. The very first time I heard of it was when our newly formed non-profit organisation was applying for some government permissions. As is the case with the government, it was a long drawn out process and we kept waiting for things to move. Suddenly out of the blue Mr. NK gets a call from one of his acquaintances who found the brochure of our organisation accidentally fall out of from the pile of books kept below the telephone table. Picking it up, the gentleman remembered that he was asked to look into the matter regarding our permissions and he immediately did so!
Similarly, two years ago when our website had crashed, Mr. NK received a phone call from out of the blue – it was his former IT guy who wanted to know if our organisation needed any help. And didn’t we need it! After months of looking for someone to revamp our website it was finally the Hand of God that sent Leon to volunteer for us .
Last year when we were facing yet another manpower crisis, Sinhaar volunteered to help us with our Communications and ably stepped in to fill the breach created by the unexpected departure of our Communications manager.
Helping out with St. Judes has reaffirmed my faith in having Faith. Faith can move mountains and there truly is someone out there, keeping an eye on all of us and extending a hand when things need to be d
Twenty- five Seven 