I have written on various platforms – Blogger, WordPress, Tumblr and
Posterous on various issues. This is another blog that seeks to reduce
all of my writings and put them into one place whether I like it or
not. It also simultaneously will act as a reservoir of my move to
minimization in other aspects of my life whilst I work on moving
things to another repository.
This is my road – my road to minimization.
I have been around in Chembur since 1992 or so. Since then, the town has changed a lot. The municipal swimming facility in Chembur, now called General Arun Kumar Vaidya Swimming Pool. This was part of the overall naming and renaming exercise undertaken by the right-wing Shiv Sena which swept into power in 1994 in the state of Maharashtra. I do not recollect what this pool was called before being named so.
My experience in this swimming pool has not been great. When I tried to learn swimming here as a kid my skin got discolored and as a result I lost interest in swimming. From then on, I have passed in front of the pool several times without caring to learn its proper name (something I am interested in but not of importance since people just call it Swimming Pool). Hence for a very long time, this pool and its activities didn’t have my interest.
Recently, there was a news report in the local newspaper, Mumbai Mirror reported that there was a danger that the pool may be handed over to private parties through improper channels. The pool has apparently not been used for the past two years and the municipal corporation is spending approximately Rs. 16 lakhs. The picture is murky and RTI activists are digging for information.
This revived an interest in swimming and also revived an urge to spread the word about what was happening to this public space. The first thing to do was to find out what it is called. The above report swaps the names of the two pools at Chembur and Kandivali. The one at Chembur is called the General Arunkumar Vaidya taran talav. An interest arose in learning more about the General and I reached the Bharat Rakshak website and found the information I was looking for.
The General has served India during the Indo-Pakistan Wars of 1965 and 1971 and as Chief of Army Staff he planned Operation Bluestar. Like Indira Gandhi who ordered the Operation, the General was also assassinated for his role in the Operation in Pune in 1986. The General was awarded the Maha Vir Chakra and the Padma Vibhushan.
Interestingly, in the early 2000s, a Sikh businessman operated his hotel out of the premises when the swimming pool was in the name of the General. I am not sure if he knew about the General or his role in the Operation. The hotel did not have good food and so even that didn’t provide me a reason to go there. It inevitably closed operations. Now, the fore ground of the swimming pool is being used for parking vehicles.
In 2001, I started seeing people jogging and begin going to the gym.
As time passed, more and more people started doing such recreational
activities and today many Indians are very conscious of how they look.
I think we’re in a somewhat similar condition to that today regarding
with environment. There is the slow creation of awareness and there
are products and offerings that are slowly emerging and the green
market is opening up.
The next generation has started becoming somewhat environment
conscious when buying things. This is not as widespread as we like it
to be but it is an emerging trend worth noticing.
I’m in the middle of various changes in lifestyle which I’m trying to
make consciously. Today, I thought I needed a good dock to start out
from and could think of no better place than Mumbai. I’m now out
asking the question: Where does Mumbai get its water from?
Over the next few days when I get the time, I will re visit this topic
here. I will try and document this journey as much as possible.
I see this as possibly a first step in answering the question of
rethinking the way mega cities and at the micro level consume water so
that we can get water conservation measures out of the clean the
beaches and close the tap mode.
Amazing how little we know about how we get the water we use in our homes.
Imagine you live in a traditional village which has shared water with
neighbouring villages, towns and cities for a century. This year was
nasty and the water board is still pumping out water because those
freak in the cities don’t see or ignore the lakes falling water level.
Five years pass and people in your village die because of water abuse
of your lake by others. The only step then remaining is fortifying the
water source and levying a larger charge for geting the water. This is
a possible situation we could be headed towards.
Unlike computers and electricity, mechanical pipes don’t lend
themselves to a very high transport efficiency. Precious water is lost
in every pipe bend, valve, leak and pumping losses. Transporting water
over large distances is not efficient.
Today, news papers reported that the race for black gold in the Arctic is hotting up because they hold 100 bn barrels of crude. Well, that could take us through 50 years more. Then, what? Change now rather than pay later!
I went to an art gallery on the day before yesterday. It was a showcase of an artiste’s (I forgot her name!) three years of work on the paintings on the development of Bombay from right around the 1780s (around the American Civil War). This TIFR page has a good history of Bombay. So, catch all the history bit there.
I then went on a walk along the famous (?) Marine Drive. It’s got a promenade and all that now. I don’t remember how it was earlier. I walked around with markings that said 100 m, 200 m…500 m. Eerie. I looked straight ahead from there on. After sometime, temptation kicked in. 1100 m. Sick!
I saw all these penthouses and I really wondered at all the Mercedes prowling on the streets. This is a whole different part of town. It was a surreal experience. And, my short term memory being that bad. I have forgotten most of the things. I have scribbled them down on a piece of paper. I’ll recollect, recoup and put a more detailed post tomorrow.
I walked all the way to Chowpatty beach. I then got lost in some of the myriad bylanes of Mumbai which took me to Gandhi’s Mani Bhavan, Lamington Road and finally to Grant Road after which I took a bus to Sion on the way back home.
I am thoroughly enjoying my vaccations. I’ll add maps later on. Currently, prowling for a new passport application. Also, today I went to visit the Planetarium with my 11 year old brother. More on all of that in a later post.
I had earlier thought of writing in my thoughts along the whole walk along with the map, probably numbering them for brevity. But, I am too lazy to type in all my thoughts, edit them and post them here. So, I’ll let them be in my notebook.
[The original post had a walk-along-marine-drive.kml file attached. I cannot locate it now. This is a placeholder.]
It’s been raining heavily here for the past two days. The roads are a wreck with branches, overflowing drains et. all. Still people are on their way to work.
We only have Sunday’s off and on that day the rains got pretty heavy. It’s not as if you can’t go out because of the rains. You can’t go off because the winds might break the heavy water laden branches just hanging on their edges.
Want to make a bag? Try this. (I know it’s totally unrelated)
And some more, I went upto Dadar today morning in the bus and Bombay looks great and lush green for a change. No stink, now overflowing drains. BMC has also managed to clear the King’s Circle stretch which gets flooded quickly and cuts off the suburbs from the city. Hopefully, we’ve learnt a few lessons that 26/7 thought us. Cross fingers.
Parallel Spirals 