I wouldn’t be surprised if they force the “Bombay Rockers” to change their name too. 

There would be hardly anyone who has been living in Mumbai and not come across the Shiv-Sainiks. Their fetish for their choice of language in Maharashtra is well known too. So much so that they can go to any extent to have their word.

Now, I can understand one’s love for his homeland, his state and his mother tongue. I myself am a Maharashtrian, and love my language. But you don’t see me publishing this blog in Marathi, do you ?

?????? ????

Sounds good ?

Some of the sainiks, however, have had a special fetish for the name “Mumbai“. They had the name of Bombay changed to Mumbai. Then “Bombay Central” was changed to “Mumbai Central”. And now, the sainiks are behind the immensely popular school, Bombay Scottish. Apparently, they want the school to change the name to Mumbai Scottish. 

If they have their way here too, although I so hope they don’t, let’s just take a look at what could be next in line.

• Bombay Stock Exchange
• Bombay Gymkhana
• Bombay Duck ( the fish )
• Bombay to Goa ( the movie )

Well, how many of ya’ll wish to kill all Indian politicians ?

I know, I know. Everyone does. Well, I’m here to give you two more reasons to do that.

1) Apparently, Mumbai’s corporators are requesting the commissioner to play our Indian National Anthem in the house, instead of making them sing it. Why ? Because, either they don’t know the words and find it hard to sing it or they can’t be bothered to sing it.
2) Mayawati and her government are gonna erect 40 statues of her at prominent locations in the city. Talk about saving money !

Here’s the full story, taken from Mumbai Mirror about the corporators..

Our corporators can’t be bothered singing the nation anthem. Either that, or they do not know how to sing it.

On Mondaya meeting of group leaders of all political parties unanimously sent a proposal to commissioner Jayraj Phatak asking for an audio version to be played each time the house convenes, and which will drown their own poorly rendered Jana Gana Mana.

The proposal was first submitted by Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) corporator Mangesh Bansod to mayor Shubha Raul and his party’s group leader Niyaz Vanu recently. Placed before all group leaders by Vanu at their meeting yesterday, the proposal said: “Many a time (sic) many words of the anthem sung in the Corporation Hall are not pronounced correctly. I therefore suggest that an audio cassette be played and the councillors and officials present thereat be directed to sing along with the recorded anthem in chorus.”

The group leaders of the ruling Shiv Sena-BJP combine, the NCP, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena and the Samajwadi Party approved the proposal after a brief discussion. Nobody objected to the idea, thus acknowledging that corporators had difficulty singing Jana Gana Mana in the right way.

BJP group leader Bhalchandra Shirshat, who confirmed the proposal had been passed, said, “We have sanctioned the proposal in principle and sent it to the civic chief for his remarks. After that, it will be implemented.”

MNS group leader Rajendra Lad said: “It is true that corporators cannot sing the anthem properly, so we cleared the proposal.”

Explaining why he had mooted the idea in the first place, Bansod said: “This is my first term as a corporator. Whenever I have attended civic meetings, I have been shocked to see that most corporators can’t sing Jana Gana Mana correctly. It’s an insult to the anthem. So why not play a recorded version? There are so many good audio cassettes available.”

Civic chief Phatak said he could not comment on the matter as the proposal had not reached him yet.

Why don’t they all die.

So here’s 50 paise to all the corporators to learn the National Anthem and another 50 paise to mayawati for her erections (!!)

So we have seen a lot of work being done to our roads in the past. Big machines are brought in, wide holes are made, the earth is dug up, shops and houses are demolished and road-side temples are brought down amongst much uproar.

I recently happened to realise that my favourite chinese joint, Uncles Kitchen was demolished to make way for a wider road near Mith Chowki, some 2-3 kilometres from where I stay. Now, although it has found a new ( temporary ) home just 100 metres away, I am pretty confident it wont do as much business here, as the old place.

Now, even if the government puts thousands of Rupees into road-widening ( and a million more into their own pockets ) it makes no sense. We have all seen, that most of the wide roads, no matter how wide they are, are only used to park vehicles, used as a bay-area for trucks or tempos, used for washing auto-rickshaws or taxis, used to sell vegetables and fruits, or used to build hutments. There are numerous roads that I have seen that have gone through all this. There is one road where an entire lane has been occupied by shanties after it was widened and in the peak traffic hours, there are kids that play outside and stage a hazard to themselves and to the motorists. Not only this, but these people put up tables or anything that they can find to block traffic so that it doesn’t come close to their house.

Then there are roads which have lanes used only for the sole purpose of washing auto-rickshaws and taxis. This thing not only uses up the lane space, but also leaves the road splashed with water and oily substances. Eeekss.

Then there are the usual cases where roads are encroached upon hawkers who sell Vegetables, season fruits and other such goods.

The thing to notice here is, neither the government, the civic authrities, nor the police pay any attention to this. Nothing is done to curb this. As soon as a road is widened, it is encroached upon.

So here’s fifty paise to everyone who is responsible for this. Stop wasting the people’s money.

Click on these pictures alongside and view them carefully.

These are pictures of a regular green, Garbage truck in Mumbai. But this one’different.

If you have looked carefully, this truck is carrying the garbage bin on its butt. The bin is dangling behind with just2 slim metal arms holding it to the truck.

I noticed this truck while returning from college a few weeks back at the Uncle’s Kitchen Junction. The truck is endangering the lives of the mororists and other people on the road. One small bump in the road and the bin will come crashing down.

So here’s fifty paise to the truck driver. Get a tempo and carry the bin in it.