John P Matthew on Writing, Book Reviews, and the Writing Life!

Andheri – literally “the state of being dark” – has many world-class industries which manage the IT requirements of the world’s major corporations – all very high-brow Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and other IT systems. But these companies seem to fail to manage the systems that lay around them – garbage uncleared for days, cables lying open and exposed, drainage that is virtually non-existent, flooding that occurs in every monsoon, unnamed and un-numbered roads, etc., the list can be endless.

In the evening and mornings the crowds that emerge from the trains is a sight worth seeing and recording. As the people walk out, there is a sense of chaos, redeemed only by the tremendous patience of the Bombayite, or, for that matter their callousness. Who cares only, no? What, no, men, nobody bothers a frig, men, only we the poor people suffer in silence, we pay taxes, we do the work, we only bear the brunt of bad roads and even worse drainage, says friend Anthonybhai.

Why not widen the roads, why not shift the bus depot to another place, why not have a one-way around the station? Questions which remain unanswered by the ancient railways and the new and prestigious Metro Rail that is coming up in the vicinity. Most days the commute from Andheri station to the office in MIDC takes around half-an-hour of agonisingly slow progress.

The Western Express Highway is mostly bridges but most of the times one can see a traffic jam a few kilometres long over it. If Andheri is such an important area for business why hasn’t the businesses in the area canvassed for better facilities and improvements? Is there no hope for this suburb which lies close to two major airports of the country, and is the hub of several important industries?

Anthonybhai loves Andheri. He has several girlfriends in the quaint old East Indian villages of Marol and Maroshi. But what men, our villages have been torn down to build these big, big, sky-touching, glass things, Anthony says, and there’s no space to ease one’s bike with girlfriend behind only on a Saturday date. Too bad if she gets a nervous breakdown by the end of the date, no?