MUMBAI’S NEARLY DILAPIDATED MULTI-STORYED BUILDINGS

POEM

One of the perennial problems Mumbai, the financial capital of our nation faces is the nearly dilapidated, multi-storied buildings which are about to collapse like a pack of cards at any time especially with the onset of monsoon accompanied by storms. These buildings date back to more than one or two centuries.
A number of Mumbai citizens who have no way out occupy these buildings are aware of the dangers lurking behind, seek refuge in these buildings.
Each year nearly ten such multi-storied buildings fall down killing numerous innocent citizens who consist besides Maharashtrians, migrants from different parts of the country seeking jobs to earn a living. Besides those who lose lives, countless are maimed for life who pull on their lives begging others who throw peanuts to their stretched hands. Life as far as the occupants of these buildings across the suburbs are like living in hell. Those who commute by trains, buses, taxis and other vehicles can very well watch these buildings and those poor people living in them and can ponder over their plight and heave deep sighs.
Naturally an average citizen’s ire is pointed towards the governments led by various parties and its allies. The authorities  don’t have  an iota of regret or remorse left for the people who spend their lives in such buildings resigned to their fate. One might be forced to call it destiny and nothing else. Most politicians in Maharashtra are concerned with the pleasing the corporate lobby and are at the latters’ feet always in addition to pocket money amounting to crores through corrupt practices by hook or crook.
They always derive sadistic pleasure or develop indifference on watching the sufferings or hardships of the have-nots.
When a nearly dilapidated building collapses and a number of occupants die the authorities in their typical style express shock and shed crocodile tears and assure compensation to the kith and kin of those who lose their lives and the those who are maimed or injured but rarely such assurances never materialize. After all of what use in case they keep their assurances after valuable lives are lost or a number of occupants are disabled for life.
The cardinal step should have been initiating measures to prevent such tragedies well in advance and for that if need be demolish such buildings after rehabilitating the occupants to safer places for which the government  should bear the entire expenditure whatsoever  huge it might be. And they should not forget to bring to justice the owners of such buildings who were bound to initiate the preventive measures. There are many so-called present day owners who are building multi-storied buildings without required licences encroaching govt’s lands bribing the officials. These buildings are built in such haphazard ways that such buildings would crash down any time, any moment. These are the stories of present day structures, not the centuries old buildings about to crumble down most of them when the climate is adverse.
Mumbaites, I mean here the poor and lower middle class people are always living on the edge……As I have already mentioned it is nothing but destiny………