Bandra girl & RJ Malishka Mendonca had stirred a hornet’s nest with her Marathi rap ‘Mumbai tula BMC war bharosa nahi ka’. This had irked ruling party of the corporation for finger pointing misdeeds and mismanagement. Once upon a time many decades ago this same corporation was run by British officers from the Colonial Raj & we used to call them ‘Colonial Pigs’. How wrong we were then without knowing, for at least they had the ‘milk of human kindness’, diligence of duty and were devoutly honest, disciplined & hardworking. If the skin was lily white, at least it was pure at heart. What we have today is the miserable condition of our potholed roads, mushrooming slums & the pathetic manner in which inspite of paying a 5% cess tax for Swachh Bharat people are dying of dengue & H1N1 flu.
Enough has been said & written about the manner in which the corporation runs its business for the public it serves. Even the commissioner made several promises throughout the year about the menace of eliminating potholes on roads, reprimanded his own engineers & supervisors, issued notices to contractors, black listed them & even had a few arrested, yet we see everyday pictures in newspapers & on TV of the same happening through out the city. A Bandra woman biker was run over by a truck to her death on 23rd July 2017 at Dahanu while maneuvering a pothole. Not forgetting to mention the horrendous deaths of 345 persons in Maharashtra from H1N1 flu. This sad tale is a never ending saga of the lackadaisical performance of corporations & its elected representatives.
When Malishka hit big times with her Marathi rap, it went viral & made heads turn. An MP of the ruling party called it ‘derogatory’ & was ready to file a defamation suit of Rs. 500,000/-, when good sense prevailed & the court rejected his plea citing it ‘filmsy’. Retired HC Judge Kanade had wise words for the MP & the party that the song was to be seen & heard as a satire with no malicious intent. That was not the end of the story, for the BMC got into action because the singer is Catholic & with no political backing. They raided her house to find fault or faults to pin her down and discovered dengue breeding mosquitoes in flower pots. Even Einstein would never have thought of this. Thank God he never worked for BMC. This is how BMC operates. Those who finger point their misdeeds are victimised. But it is the public of Mumbai who stood by Malishka & vehemently protested voicing their dissent on WhatsApp & on TV.
Kapil Sharma, the comedian also got the wrong end of the stick when he tweeted PM Modi to complain about the forced nuisance of bribe taking by the BMC. Not only was he victimised, but also suffer the ignominy of shameful harassment so that next time he will not open his mouth to complain about any misdeeds of the corporation. What is the lesson to be learnt from this story. Before you throw a stone & shatter the windows of BMC, make sure you are well armed or leave the country like Vijay Mallya.
Amar Singh
