Salam Slumbai!

 Govandi, in Mumbai’s backyard, boasts of a slumboat (like houseboats in Srinagar!) –where an entire slum float on sludge and water. It is probably an only city in India with such ‘distinctive’ feature.  Every monsoon when the water level raises this slum too gets ‘taller’.

The city which has a paucity of land and moving vertical – towards skyward, treats this as a living example of the adage - survival of the fittest – a Darwinian principle still not repudiated by scientific community unlike his many other doctrines. The people improvised this watery settlement by using plastics and rubber wastes to erect their floating tents – a habitat borne out of sheer exigency.

This may be an ‘eye-candy’ for news hungry scribes but for the city planners, MHADA, etal it’s a shame as they have miserably failed to stem housing crises despite their unceasing braggadocio appeared in advertisements and hoardings prior to every master plan. These are all seems to keep the visiting World Bank dignitaries in good humour. After all they fund many of our projects.

Even with scarce space the city still boasts of charisma to pull people from grey areas. For the last twenty year or so the city has witnessed huge influx of carpet baggers from dusty villages lying deep in hinterland. The immigrants are from all the four geographical zones of India.  

The city bounded by sea from all the four sides cannot stretch the land and thus a highly scarce commodity here. The ‘floating’ shanty in Govandi highlights another aspect of civic violation. Even the water bodies and nullahs in Mumbai are not immune from encroachment – they are not safe from the prying eyes of developers and land sharks, too!

The recent outbursts against a particular diaspora settled in Mumbai have much to do with the problem like these. It provides fodder to those riding on linguistic chariots. 

The general election is in the offing and the issue will undoubtedly raise questions on the nation’s richest city’s credibility. The prejudiced decisions may create more problems than solving it. The coming election seems to be fought on such local issues as it affects all of us.