A rough ride even for rodents
At the turn of the century, I struck up a friendship with a bandicoot named Bandi. I met her whilst navigating a dug-up bylane. Perhaps sensing a sympathiser in me, she called out, and even braved the outdoors and surfaced from her murky confines so we could meet faceto-snout and commiserate on the state of our shared home.
“This #*6@#…. digging”, her contemptuous squeak seemed to say.
Last night, under unchanged conditions, I bumped into Bandi again. Her fur was streaked with silver; she had survived thousands of tons of churning, hundreds of man-made tectonic upheavals.
“Hey, you haven’t changed much, except for a tad more white in your beard,” her keen eyes said.
She seemed staggered to ging underway. “How on earth do you Mumbaikars tolerate this supreme suffering,” she asked. “Since we met that wintry night many years ago, I have sneaked abroad umpteen times, visiting a dozen countries. Not once did I see roads so dug up.”
“But Bandi why did you roots are here, you see” she lamented, “not that your people seem to care.”
I said something about how I totally agreed with her on all this mindless digging. “It’s not mindless,” she retorted. “A lot of minds work hard, gathering under the tables at committee digs are actually sites of excavation no less historic than those of previous civilisations. They too will tell future generations how we lived and governed ourselves. Every department is leaving its mark, often re-digging soon after another has finished at the same stretch.”
I listened patiently. “Bandi, you are so learned,” I said, “but I must tell you we’ve learnt to live with this chaos; we even breathe this new thing called daskygen (a mix of dust, apathy and smoky oxygen). We’re all waiting for that promise of a better tomorrow — remember that signboard 16 years ago?”
Did the bandicoot see any change in 17 years, I asked hopefully? “Well, it’s the same continuous cataclysm, only the more abundant cables and pipes have become colourful,” she says.
I had to end our encounter then, as a giant grumbling machine arrived, spewing and churning more debris for the better tomorrow. Bandi leapt away and vanished. I trust we’ll meet again soon.