Mumbai Spirit

In  yesterday’s blog,  the one date was not mentioned correctly, instead of 25th July 2005 – it should be read as 26th July 2005. My sincere apologies for this typographical error.

The blog yesterday covered the topic of what happened in Mumbai on 29th Aug 2017 and it probable causes and the people/organisation responsible for the same, and probable solution to solve the issue of Mumbai. Today I am going to cover the spirit of Mumbai city and Mumbaikars. In the normal day to day life of Mumbaikar, no one is bothered about what the other person is doing. People are so busy in their routine life, that they hardly bother an outsider or unknown person, it is generally said the a ordinary Mumbaikar may not even know who is his next door neighbour. BUT when natural calamity/disaster/terrorist attack  strike Mumbai then Mumbaikar’s real spirit comes out, like it happened two days back on 29th Aug.

Few of the points I wish to elaborate :

1. Most of the organisations inl Mumbai allowed their employees to leave early, but when the employees ventured out, they realised that they have no where to go as many of them use local trains to commute from home and local trains were not running. They had no choice but to return. to their office. The management of all the organisations allowed their employees to stay back in the office and arranged for their food and snacks and in some case their sleeping arrangements also.
2. The people who were stranded in the buses, taxis, cars etc on the roads were offered tea and snacks by near by tea stalls and houses. A rich person made a statement that when his car was stalled on the road, he saw people from nearby slums coming out and  offered tea and some biscuits to him and people stranded in the vehicles on the road.
3. Many religious places like Gurudwaras, Masjids, Ganpati Pandals and Temples also invited  affected people in their premises and provided them with shelter and food.
4. What to say about the spirit of BEST buses Drivers and Conductors, although they were struck for many hours on the roads but they worked beyond their duty hours and ferried the passengers.
5. The Kali Peeli taxi operators maintained the spirit of Mumbai but it was big let down by Cab aggregator like Ola and Uber, who started charging their surge prices which were more by 3oo to 400%.
6. There were instances of Vada Pav walas offering free Vada Pav to people stranded on the roads, but the Multi National Companies like McDonalds, Domino’s Pizza, Pizza Hut , Burger Kings and others did not made an effort  to offer any thing free or on discounted rate to the stranded people.
7. There were many instances where ordinary people offered help to handicapped  and blind people stuck in local trains for long hours.
8. Lakhs of people were stranded on the local stations for full night on 29th Aug , compare this with what happened in Houston few days back. You all must be aware that Houston was hit by hurricane few days back and complete city reeled under flood, there the local govt imposed a curfew during the night as they were afraid that the wrong element in the city will start looting the homes and shops. And here in Mumbai full night people were on the road and no untoward incident happened, does it prove that we are more civilised than Americans.

So in the end die hard spirit of Mumbai City and Mumbaikars always triumphs and hope it always stay that way only. Only advice to MNCs like Ola, Uber, McDonald, Pizza King, Domino’s Pizza and others that next time when disaster strikes Mumbai, please help  Mumbaikars and keep the spirit of Mumbai city intact, this time you have let them down badly. Please note that you are making huge profits from the people of this city, and if you lose part of one day’s profit, it is not going to affect your balance sheet adversely but indirectly it will boost your image and in the long run you will benefit from the same. Please remember the spirit of Mumbai will never change for you, and if you have to do business in the city you will have to change.

What you say my friends.

Awaiting for your feed backs and comments.