Sab taraf Khuda hai - Oh God!
   Date :20-Jun-2019

 
Vijay Phanshikar:
 
“Yahan Khuda hai, wahan Khuda hai, sab taraf Khuda hai”. One cannot miss the spiritual tinge in the assertion. God is everywhere -- here, there and all over. The only difference, however, is that the “Khuda” in this assertion does not refer to the omnipresent God, but to how the city has been dug up -- khuda -- all over by the authorities for reasons never explained to the citizen. So, the people find “khuda” everywhere -- here, there and all over! In the throes of what is described by political leaders as ‘development’, the city of Nagpur appears to be a terribly disheveled place for the past some years. Except in Civil Lines and a few other places, the whole city gives the impression of a badly-managed place that has been dug up everywhere in the name of ‘development’.
 
“Of course”, said a functionary of the ruling party in the Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) a few days ago, “this is a small price a city has to pay for development”. It was futile to argue with the honourable man! For, he did not seem in a mood to give a patient hearing about how the civic authorities are operating on a flawed definition of what development should be. In fact, not just that one person but also his political bosses are in no mood to listen to words of caution even from their own supporters. So much in a hurry they are to push their agenda that they are all the time talking about big projects that are going claim thousands of crores of rupees.
 
And as they do this, they miss the detail altogether -- that the city’s trees are on their funeral journey in most places; that the city’s storm-water drains are choked almost everywhere; that the contractors are digging up pavements and the drains everywhere -- to lay power cables at some places or put water pipelines at some other places in the most faulty manner that may even endanger people’s lives. Move around the city for two-three hours and you will find countless signatures of bad civic management all over -- “Sab taraf khuda hai” -- in the most senseless manner.
 
Even in posh areas where millionaires have their posh homes and tall housing complexes, the bases of almost all trees have been covered with much and bricks and garbage despite the claims by the civic authorities that they have cleaned up -- dechoked -- thousands of tree-bases by now. We do see some evidence of that work all right, but we also see the evidence of a lot of work yet to be done -- “Sab taraf khuda hai”! Yes, one does remember gods as one moves around the city, for one sees God -- Khuda -- everywhere. And then there are areas in which roads have been dug up and left like that for weeks on end so much so that the residents cannot get into their homes.
 
‘The Hitavada’ published just a couple of days ago photographic evidence of how horribly the civic authorities have dug up the place in Trimurti Nagar and Ramdaspeth. And there are countless such places as victims of lethargy and bad planning and sluggish implementation in the name of ‘development’. And despite all this, the civic authorities are not bothered, or better still, do not even notice that their badly managed civic operations are putting the people in so much trouble. And talk to the political bigwigs and they will tell you how lucky Nagpur is to have such a civic agenda -- of having the city dug up in a terrible manner! Only God knows! Or, even He may never know the ways of the city’s civic managers and leaders!