Road, that is.
If you’ve read today’s papers, you will already know about the water pipeline that burst in the middle of last night. It was a terrible ordeal for all the residents of Hill Road but not a shock - and I quote (the Mirror) “According to traffic police sources, the road witnesses a flow of approximately 30,000 vehicles every day, while it was meant to cater to not more 8,000 vehicles.”
I heard first hand accounts about the “loud bang” in the night - louder than the post-diwali/present-id crackers. About the water that flooded the roads worse than the rains. About the noise that ensued.
And of course, about the traffic jams the next morning (today) because of only one lane being available for station bound traffic.
I took a round myself (bravo Mell!!) to see the scene of the crime as it were. And it was not a pretty sight. There it was, gaping for all to see, with red & white cordon lines flapping in the wind.
And of course, nothing was being done about it. No one was even around. No water guy people. No road people. No traffic people. Just lots of rickshaws all around. And lots of normal fed-up-how-much-can-we-take-of-this people.
See my pic below and compare it to the pics in the Mumbai Mirror (edit: have had to take out the link as it no longer points to the same page). It looks like the “authorities” just did some stuff and then dumped all the earth back over the hole:
(Click to enlarge)
In other news, since I was going to Hill Road, took another friend of mine who wanted buy some sexy lingerie from earlier mentioned store. Am sure the dude thinks I’m a pimp (or is it madam ?) now because I keep bringing other women to his store to buy fancy feathery thingies.
Edited: Thursday 26th October
Just found out that the WHOLE of Hill Road is going to be dug up (they’ve already started at the end of Hill Road; the area going up to Mount Mary’s) as the entire water pipe is going to be replaced. So almost everyone in Bandra, at some point or the other, will now have to bear the brunt of another integral mainstream road being dug up.
; ?>/feed-icon-24x24.png){kind=icon}
October 26th, 2006 at 2:39 am
That too funny about the store. REally bad for the people of hill road to go through these after all the rains and stuff and plus Diwali and Eid just ended. I dont think people need these. Hope they get it fixed soon.
October 26th, 2006 at 6:43 am
Good old Indian Apathy
October 26th, 2006 at 11:17 pm
Well, at least they cordoned off the area. That’s better than nothing.
You really expected them to do something? That too, horrors, with OUR tax money? Oh no! They probably voted to send our Minister for Road Repairs to Switzerland to study advanced, state-of-the-art techniques to fill up roads.
And Mel, if Harsha ever comes to town, you may take him to the lingerie store, but make sure you don’t take him to the shoe store. I can only imagine what that dude is gonna think.
October 27th, 2006 at 8:42 am
@ dev:
completely rotfl about Harsha…
October 27th, 2006 at 7:11 pm
oh jesus !!!
i wonder how long they will tkae before they dig up- and re settle the whole of hill road ?
October 27th, 2006 at 8:30 pm
C’est la vie. And they call us the “Queen of the Suburbs”.
October 29th, 2006 at 2:28 am
Hey! About to dig into your blog; thought I’ll say “Hi!” first!
October 29th, 2006 at 10:38 am