By Niroj Dash
After the CM ordered that he wants Mumbai’s roads to look like Hema Malini’s cheeks, the BMC has found a novel solution: They will get rid of the patches of roads between potholes to ensure consistency.
Relief at last for Mumbaikars! According to CMO sources, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has asked BMC to get rid of all potholes within the month or be ready to face the consequences. “Do whatever it takes, I want Mumbai roads to look like Hema Malini’s cheeks by August,” the message, delivered by a man in a boat, read.
It didn’t take too long for BMC officials to find a way around this stiff deadline. This time, they decided, they would do away with the patches of road between the gaping potholes. This way, no one would be able to technically “see” any potholes, and the road would achieve the consistency of Hema Malini’s cheeks in a week’s time.
We spoke to the man from the BMC who came up with this grand scheme, but did not wish to be named. “Last month, I read a story in Chandamama. A painter was asked to paint a room in the colour of a box the owner gave him. The painter, because he was lazy, painted the box in the same colour as the room and left…”
“Anyway, while I was reading, I completely forgot that we were supposed to be fixing potholes – you know how time flies, you space out for a year and it’s monsoon again… So yesterday I came up with this brilliant plan all by myself.”
For the BMC, this scheme is like ek teer se do shikar. It’s the only way to please both the Mumbaikars and the government. No roads, means no complaints, and Maharashtra can finally get one step closer to being the first pothole-free state. This comes just weeks after Vinod Tawde announced that the city is now officially waterlogging free, and that all the water we were looking at was part of the government’s plan to make Mumbai more like the city of Venice.
No roads, means no complaints, and Maharashtra can finally get one step closer to being the first pothole-free state.
“In Europe, people think boat rides are so beautiful. Here they think it is disgusting. So what if you get a little dengue, malaria, I ask? People are so weak these days! They don’t even drink milk, and they want to be Europe,” a local corporator told us.
The BMC says that for this project, they don’t need additional material, but will rely solely on Mumbai’s spirit. “The soil is loose now. As bikes keep overtaking trucks and hitting the floor with their helmets, the roads will loosen further. Then we get rickshawallahs, and SUVs to act like bulldozers,” an official told us. “Cyclewallahs are actually useless; we are considering banning them,” he added.
“My office is just 12 kilometers away, but because I have to avoid potholes, I end up driving more than 20 kilometers. Everyone is saying from August, there will be no more potholes or footpaths. Let us see how this works out, I think it’ll be good,” said Pravin Tambe, a hopeful resident who always votes Shiv Sena.
Amped with this moderate success, BMC officials are now taking on bigger tasks. They believe that what Mumbaikars call the Mithi gutter, was once an ancient Indian river. “The government is distracting people with all this pothole nonsense. What about the Mithi Gutter? In the next 30 or so years hopefully, we will clean that up as well,” the BMC official told us.
The article was originally published in Arré.
Niroj Dash is an author at Arre.
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