Relic of the Raj

In Bombay’s Raj Bhavan, small stalks fallen on the ground look just like the street lamps there. On a nature walk once, a naturalist told me cheerfully that the stalks belonged to the fruit of the “wild bhendi”. It was a terribly mundane explanation for the wonder I felt whenever I picked up one of [...]

Five years to greatness

I’ve waited five years for this. Well, not quite: the five years are actually up only at the end of this week; but given that I’m off travelling in a few hours and I’m not sure where I’ll be on the precise anniversary, this goes on air now.
The scene: Lucknow. The date: February 26, 2000. [...]

Still the same

Some excerpts from a monograph about the demolition of slums. Excuse the length but bear with me:
“[S]lums are seen to be one of the most intractable problems of third world cities. We seem to have given up pretending to solve the problem and have resigned ourselves to merely coping with it. Underlying this perspective are [...]

Kids after the cutoff

My article on slum demolitions on India Together: read it via this link. This is also a plug for India Together. A fine effort (not just because they publish me) that deserves your support.

Like a ST bus stand

He said it some years ago, but for some odd reason I remember it very well today. Possibly because it could easily have been said today; possibly too because, yet again, we hear a lot of talk about “beautifying” our airports.
“He” was Sharad Pawar, then Chief Minister of Maharashtra. On a Ministerial visit to Bombay’s [...]

Men like you. Report them

When we reach Moragaon at the end of Juhu, I see – I can get used to this – piles of rubble, clumps of people, palm and banana trees. And, sitting idly in the middle of what once were over 200 houses, a small group of security guards.
Hell, I think. I’ve come to this place [...]

Scene in the hills

Two days up in the hills outside Lonavala, on an impromptu break that we organized and set off on in a matter of two hours … what a fillip to the greying cells. Caught up on some of my backlog of reading, got my son acquainted with the joy of identifying Orion in the sparkling [...]

Not so hard

At least in Chennai, at least on the face of it, they seem to be addressing the issue of slums in a sensible way. Sunday’s (February 13) Hindu reports Corporation removes encroachments on Nungambakkam Canal. (For some reason I can’t find the report on the web).
Over 100 huts, begins the report, which occupied a piece [...]

Poor soup

This is a short passage from a novel I’m reading, Steven Pressfield’s Tides of War. It is about the Peloponnesian war of the 5th Century BC: the internecine fighting between Athens and Sparta, with other Greek city-states lined up on either side, that dragged on for years and ended with Athens destroyed.
It is also about [...]

Tell it to them

I’m just back from a half day spent at one more municipally flattened area: a place at one end of Juhu called Mora Nagar. 200 houses belonging to Koli fishermen, Bombay’s original residents, demolished. Boats, nets, rubble, books, papers, dogs running around, several hundred bewildered and upset people.
I will write about it all here [...]