News of the imminent replacement of Mumbai’s fleet of ageing, sorry taxis must fill everyone with joy. For the vehicles are a disgrace to any city, let alone a city that prides itself on being international, India’s gateway etc, never mind such claims are far from the truth.

And as someone condemned eternally to spend his commuting life in the backseat of the rickety Premier Padminis, having already done this for more than four years, I think I am eminently qualified to write on why Mumbai’s existing taxi service needs to go.

For one, it is a ripoff. Two years have passed since the changeover to CNG, but the meters are still set to diesel rates. Which means for two years Mumbai’s taxi users have been forking out higher fare, and no one – not the transport secretary, consumer activists or the ever-vigilant PIL brigade – seem to be bothered. And talking of meters, when do you think was the last time they were calibrated? Must have been before my time, which puts it into Noah’s era.

But the vehicles, the vehicles. Few of them are well-maintained and fit for the road. Most of them – at least the ones I have traveled in, and I have traveled in plenty – are so badly maintained that they give a healthy human spinal and cervical problems. Ask me, I should know. Do they even have shock absorbers, I have often wondered, or do they run on plain chassis? The seats are bumpy, the insides are hardly cleaned, henceforth they must come with a statutory warning like for cigarettes.

Even if you ignore the state of the vehicle, the drivers are in most cases no better. Most of them are third-gear wonders, unable to accelerate on an empty stretch, or ignorant of downshifting while climbing a flyover. Regardless, they will occupy the fast lane, leading to road rage for other motorists.

In a free-market economy such a service is a disgrace. But so far the Bombay Taximen’s Union has managed to stave off a decision to replace them. I think they are only delaying the inevitable.

They have never played my song, or read out my traffic bulletin, or any of my other smses, leading me to often think I was on their RJs' blacklist, but that did not prevent Go 92.5 from being my favourite FM station. The only one I tuned in to.

Few things represented the Mumbai spirit to me, and Go 92.5 was one of them.

It was more than 10 years ago, in its earlier avatar of Radio Mid-Day, and it was now.

My mornings and evenings, and over the weekends the days and nights, were never complete without having it play in the background. The times we had people over, I still had Go 92.5 playing in the background rather than take out my CDs etc.

The banter between Taraana and Jaggu in the morning, sometimes the over-enthusiastic Shruti who came on at 11 am, Horn OK Please with Malini on the way home which dovetailed into Classics with Glen past 9 pm, topped by the T-Man on Sunday mornings -- man, I was hooked, you get the picture.

I was not the only one, most people I knew shared my fondness for Go 92.5. In particular their mix of English and Hindi, not just in the choice of songs but also by their RJs.

I remember the time when Anish Trivedi would host Good Morning Mumbai and stole hearts. I distinctly remember his last show, when he said 'Good Morning Mumbai, Goodbye Mumbai', I actually had tears in my eyes. I didn't think anyone could replace him, yet months later I was hooked on to Taraana and Jaggu.

So often I have thought: man, here's one station that's playing my song.

I agreed with their catchline: If it's in your head, it's on Go.

If you ask me what was it about Go 92.5 that got me, I would have said, with apologies to Javed Jaffrey, it's different.

All good things, the bosses at the station must have decided on All Fools Day, must come to an end. So this last week Go 92.5 has changed its colours, and become like any of the other FM stations in Mumbai, which are good I am told but not different.

What exactly has changed?

For one, the lingo. Every morning I grate my teeth as I hear Taraana and Jaggu's familiar banter. Earlier, it was roughly 80 percent in English (Mumbai English, not the Bard's) and the rest in Hindi which gave me so much joy. They spoke like the rest of us, dude. Now it is the other way round. And, I don't get the feeling, listening to them, even they are comfortable with so much of Hindi. It's not second nature to them -- which is what RJing is all about.

Last evening on the way home I tuned in to see what was different at that hour. The bubbly Malini's Horn OK Please, I realised, had made way for someone called  Sangram whose language and choice of songs failed to hold my interest. And, no, Glen with his Classics did not come on at 9 pm either.

Sunday, there was no sign of the T-Man's Brunch or Glen, his stand-in or even the stiff sounding Ayaz Memon. Was there an RJ at all, or was it the station on auto-pilot? I couldn't figure.

Worse, the songs, the songs. The horrors Go 92.5 has been inflicting on Mumbai this last one week cannot by my song. Forget my head, you won't find them within a mile of me!

Whatever happened? I thought the station chose its path after due deliberation, its owners wanted it to be a niche FM station and not replicate the formula of Radio Mirchi, City, Red and what have you. It was not meant to be oriented towards the mass market, but a very select crowd.

I don't have its financials, but I am sure it worked. All its shows had sponsors, and they aired plenty of jingles. It was the station of choice for so many of Mumbai's movers and shakers, any advertiser's delight.

What gives a radio station its soul are the RJs, their lingo, and the songs, not necessarily in that order. Today, possibly the last day I will tune to Go 92.5 (all my other friends have already switched off), there's nothing in it to hold me.

You've gone away, 92.5.

-- Highway Star

Lessons from a choking Bangalore for Mumbai.
Do we really need this?

Vir Sanghvi is an angry man. He is unhappy with what is happening to his 'Bombay'.
In an editorial in the Hindustan Times he writes:
"Something strange is happening in the city of Bombay, and I'm not sure that anybody knows quite what it is yet. We are all familiar with the caricature of Bombay’s more affluent citizens, the one that so entertains and infuriates the rest of India: laidback, vacuous people, only interested in partying hard and making money, unaware that the world does not end at Juhu."
"Bombay is my city so I've never quite accepted this characterisation. But yes, even I have been angered by the willingness of Bombay-ites (I'm sorry but I'm not going to call them Mumbaikars) to sit back and party as the city is raped and pillaged by gangs of invading politicians, all of whom win their elections in rural Maharashtra and then go on to make their fortunes in the city of gold."
Which is all fine. Then he writes this:
"Then, there's the fuss over the Peddar Road flyover. If this monstrosity is built, it will completely deface South Bombay, obscure every heritage building and totally alter the city’s character."
Really???
And this:
"After the Bombay floods last year, everyone woke up to the realisation that though Bombay pays Rs 60,000 crore in taxes every year, it gets back only Rs 1,000 crore for infrastructure. That statistic is shocking enough. But it was only after I moved to Delhi and was able to see how much money was spent on South Delhi that I realised what a bad deal South Bombay really gets."

So if a flyover is built at Mohammed Ali Road, it is necessary since that part of town is congested. And when it's built on an equally-congested Peddar Road, it's a monstrosity?
And the Bombay that he refers to is actually South Mumbai. South Mumbai does not pay Rs 60,000 crore in taxes, Mr Sanghvi, the whole of Mumbai does. The Mumbai, that is north of Mahim, pays the lion's share of that. On which nearly 50 flyovers have already been built. On which another 45 are going to be built. Are those 'monstrosities'? Are we going to stop building the infrastructure of the city so that people can gawk at the so-called heritage buildings?
The fact of the matter is that the city needs to get cracking on its infrastructure. And a lot of work is being done. If that means there’s a flyover going by my window, I better accept it. Or go and live elsewhere.

The spate of wardrobe malfunctions at the Lakhme Fashion Week seem to have got Mumbai's moral brigade all hot under the collar.
Here's an excerpt from a report in this morning's Hindustan Times:
'Repeated wardrobe malfunctions at Lakme Fashion Week (LFW) have cheesed off the Mumbai police. In fact, the police’s Social Service Branch isn’t even sure they were 'malfunctions.' So, they're going to ask LFW organisers to clarify whether Carol Gracias' dress falling off and Gauhar Khan's skirt coming apart were mere accidents or deliberate publicity stunts.
DCP (Enforcement) Sanjay Aparanti, who heads the special branch entrusted with the upkeep of public morals and women’s is sues, says the incidents are 'wrong, unethical and immoral.' That's a lot of adjectives. But he has more: 'This is derogatory to the morality of every woman and society at large.' Speaking to HT on Friday, Aparanti said LFW organisers should have been extra careful after the first 'malfunction' on Wednesday,' the paper reports.
I would love to be a fly on the wall when Mr Apranti seeks clarifications from the organisers.
Just who are these guys? Why don't they crawl back into their caves?

'Netas agree that slums must go,' says DNA.
‘For the first time in several years, the BMC looks set to push ahead with its slum-removal programme without political hindrance. The two usual suspects, Gurudas Kamat, Congress MP from Mumbai Northeast, and Kripashankar Singh, Congress MLA from Santa Cruz, have pledged not to intervene in the removal of slums that have come up after January 1, 2000. Chief Minister Vilasrao Desmukh has categorically told Joseph that all hutments after 2000 must go,' the article says.
So we’ll see another round of bulldozers. But the problem will not go away.
No one seems to be asking the pertinent question on this issue. How did the slums come up in the first place? Are the officials responsible for allowing the slums to come up being punished? If the government is serious about the problem it should warn civil officials that there is zero-tolerance for illegal structures coming up on public land under their watch. And hand out exemplar punishment to officials who do not obey orders.
Otherwise the bulldozers will raze a few hundreds of shanties. And people will forget about the issue. Slums will mushroom again all around us. And I will be sitting in 2010, linking to some story about how the government has decided to demolish slums built before 2005.

More on the Peddar Road flyover.
A column (registration required) in the Hindustan Times by Sujata Anandan, who grew up in Peddar Road, says 'There’s dust in the voice of the Nightingale'.
'And bottleneck it really is. Over the past few years I have discovered that there is no way you can beat the Peddar Road traffic to and from South Bombay. I have often swished through town from the inner roads in minutes and then had to spend an hour or more from the Haji Ali junction upto Marine Drive (and vice versa) because the traffic simply refuses to move except at snail's pace on this route,' she says.
'In any case she seems to have cottoned on to how she is being set up for scapegoat by her neighbours. But what about the other handful or two of self-centred citizens who believe they can stop the march of a city because they live at a more fashionable address than the residents of Mohammad Ali Road? Their short-sightedness only proves that the so-called lesser citizens under the JJ flyover were not asking what the country could do for them but what they could do for the country. So who is the more exemplary citizen?,' she concludes.
DNA has a story on how Lata is stung by the negative publicity and how some residents of Peddar Road are now backing the flyover.
Good on them.

The Nightingale is getting a lot of flak for opposing the flyover at Peddar Road.
DNA, in a scathing editorial, says Lata Mangeshkar has hit the wrong notes on the issue.
'Mangeshkar is only one—though with the highest public profile—of the many objectors. But their resistance is typical of the 'not in my backyard' tendency that surfaces every time a new brick and mortar developmental project is announced. Anyone who has waited in the traffic jams at the chicken's neck which links Haji Ali to Pedder road in peak traffic will agree how badly the problem needs to be sorted out,' it says.
'The stakeholders in the Peddar road imbroglio need to recognise that the only way forward for a city of over 14 million people is upgraded infrastructure and modernisation. The details regarding the implementation can be discussed. The city, however, cannot afford drawing room objections to real problems on the ground,' it concludes.
DNA’s letters page too has some interesting views from citizens. Note: The only ones objecting are residents of Peddar Road.
Journalist Saisuresh Sivaswamy bids farewell to Lata in this interesting blog post. Read the comments, they are fun too.
Mid-day reports that the government is going ahead with the construction of the flyover despite the protests.
Mid-day also has a poll on whether Lata was right in opposing the flyover. 13 percent supported her. 87 percent did not.
Clearly the singer does not have popular support for her stand. Then why is she complaining that she is being targeted?

The legendary Lata Mangeshkar does not want a flyover near her home in Peddar Road.
She says she will quit Mumbai if the flyover is built. But Peddar Road is on the main artery leading to town and something needs to be done to ease congestion there. Many readers of Mumbai Mirror are not too pleased with Lata’s protest.
Engineers at the IIT say that the Worli-Nariman Point sealink is a better solution than the flyover. Problem is that is still some years away.
Solution: If like me you live in the suburbs, don't go to town.

DNA has this article on how different yardsticks apply for road projects in Mumbai and Delhi.
'On Thursday the ministry had put a caveat that if Mumbai wants to upgrade roads, even if under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission, it would have to make space for cyclists and pedestrians.
But in Delhi the ministry sees no cause for concern in the city government's plans to build 25 new flyovers and road over-bridges, without any dedicated space for pedestrians and cyclists, at an estimated cost of Rs 1,650 crores in next four years,' the article says.

The roads in Delhi are certainly better than the ones Mumbai. But there is still a lot of work happening in Mumbai, and roads are getting better.
We think having dedicated corridors for pedestrians and cyclists is a good idea. If you ignore them, then they will spill on to the roads and it will lead to chaos and accidents.