It was still many hours to dawn as I left Juhu – but the city of Mumbai was up and about. An autorickshaw was easy to get; there were taxis on alert looking for customers, and at the platform in Dadar station, fresh samosas were being fried. I had a hot vada-pau.
There were two young lads sleeping on the platform, on cardboard. It was still dark when they woke up, folded their cardboards, and got ready for another working day.
I was reminded of the classic Bob Marley song Rat Race:
“You got a horse race,
You got a dog race,
You got a human race,
But this is a rat race.”
Everyone seems to be working very hard in Mumbai – and they pay the most in taxes.
But the conditions in which they work are horrible.
This is only because the city itself is in such a bad shape.
So what’s new?
Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata, Bangalore… every Indian metropolis is in extremely bad shape.
Working in any of these cities is not easy.
Life in these hell-holes is tough; very tough. Especially for the poor.
Of course, fixing these cities is not going to be an easy task either.
Even if these cities elect very good mayors, there will be little that a mayor can accomplish in one term – and it is therefore unlikely that he will be re-elected.
I am of the opinion that the best solution lies in building entirely new cities. The British built all our cities (and countless ‘hill-stations’) from scratch. We should now do likewise.
The Konkan coast offers many alternative locations for setting up new coastal cities. (see map). Karwar, for example, has a deep-sea port – and can easily become a Hong Kong with the right policies. Ditto for Mangalore.
And there over 20 such locations available on the Konkan, in both Maharashtra as well as Karnataka.
Our eastern seaboard too can accommodate dozens of new free-trading cities.
Many new cities can be built from scratch along both our coasts, to compete with these ruined metros. These can attract the hard-working people of these metros, whose lives are blighted by civic failure – and civic failure alone. All the bhaiyas of UP and Bihar can be welcomed to these new cities.
And a New India can arise.
Recall Bengal when Job Charnock founded Calcutta. Murshidabad was the Nawab’s capital then, and the leading city. Within decades, Murshidabad went into terminal decline and all the notables of Bengal shifted to Calcutta – not only for better living and better business opportunities, but also because property was secure and the Company’s justice was more predictable than that of the Nawab.
Way to go one more time, again.
There were two young lads sleeping on the platform, on cardboard. It was still dark when they woke up, folded their cardboards, and got ready for another working day.
I was reminded of the classic Bob Marley song Rat Race:
“You got a horse race,
You got a dog race,
You got a human race,
But this is a rat race.”
Everyone seems to be working very hard in Mumbai – and they pay the most in taxes.
But the conditions in which they work are horrible.
This is only because the city itself is in such a bad shape.
So what’s new?
Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata, Bangalore… every Indian metropolis is in extremely bad shape.
Working in any of these cities is not easy.
Life in these hell-holes is tough; very tough. Especially for the poor.
Of course, fixing these cities is not going to be an easy task either.
Even if these cities elect very good mayors, there will be little that a mayor can accomplish in one term – and it is therefore unlikely that he will be re-elected.
I am of the opinion that the best solution lies in building entirely new cities. The British built all our cities (and countless ‘hill-stations’) from scratch. We should now do likewise.
The Konkan coast offers many alternative locations for setting up new coastal cities. (see map). Karwar, for example, has a deep-sea port – and can easily become a Hong Kong with the right policies. Ditto for Mangalore.
And there over 20 such locations available on the Konkan, in both Maharashtra as well as Karnataka.
Our eastern seaboard too can accommodate dozens of new free-trading cities.
Many new cities can be built from scratch along both our coasts, to compete with these ruined metros. These can attract the hard-working people of these metros, whose lives are blighted by civic failure – and civic failure alone. All the bhaiyas of UP and Bihar can be welcomed to these new cities.
And a New India can arise.
Recall Bengal when Job Charnock founded Calcutta. Murshidabad was the Nawab’s capital then, and the leading city. Within decades, Murshidabad went into terminal decline and all the notables of Bengal shifted to Calcutta – not only for better living and better business opportunities, but also because property was secure and the Company’s justice was more predictable than that of the Nawab.
Way to go one more time, again.
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