IT was a narrow bridge one climbed from once a lazy station, onto the road above. Elphinstone Road station in Mumbai was hardly used previously, except by mill workers of old, going to work or returning to their homes. And then in the last twenty years the whole area changed: The old mills were demolished, towers, housing thousands of offices appeared and the area turned from a sleepy location to a business hub, but the thin narrow bridge remained.
Till one day over two score commuters were killed in a stampede on that inadequate bridge! Mumbai and the rest of Maharashtra and maybe some parts of India mourned them that day and then went back to talking of, ah well, the Bullet Train. We are adept at professional pretense. I have seen buildings with near collapsing water tanks and columns and beams, going in for a lovely painting job, quite happy they have hidden their disastrous blemishes under clever make up.
“What a beautiful building!” say visitors as they come to visit. “Yes,” we say proudly as we look away from cracks and faults that have been expertly covered with putty and paint, hiding parts that our caving in, propped up by nothing more than willpower. The visitor looks at putty and paint, smiles and nods. “A beautiful building indeed!”
I remember a few years ago, going with members of an NGO and looking at hordes of leprosy patients in the suburbs. “No funds to treat them,” the NGO chairman whispered, “Because we have officially told the world we’ve eradicated leprosy!” Putty and paint, is what we love using, while pretending we have professionally handled something!
It’s like putting heavy make up on a sick person’s face. “Look!” we say, “You don’t look sick!” And the person who is sick, cries, “I’m dying!” “But look at yourself!” we tell the sick person, “Just look in the mirror, you look hale and hearty enough to party!” And the sick person, who knows that inside a cancer grows, looks at his professionally made up face and knows it’s over!
We have become adept at covering the rot inside. At ignoring the groans and moans behind the makeup! We are immune to the almost daily news of fires in high-rises, or of old buildings collapsing. Immune to fictitious figures, falsifying facts. And instead laughing and chuckling, we showcase and show off made up statistics, bullet trains, statues and proposed islands with even ‘taller than Liberty’ statues in the sea.
We point out how we’ve changed the name of the station that saw the death of so many, from Elphinstone Road Station to Prabhadevi Station; new board, new name, bright red lipstick and fancy make up, but did it save the lives of those crushed in that ancient staircase that day? Putty, paint, and professional pretence, on a dilapidated staircase called India..!
