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ShareAcademics from one American university have posited the theory that Mumbai is an estuary: accept that and you have solved its flooding problems. But you can also solve flooding problems by cleaning the drains, leaving a few run-off areas open and cutting back on construction activity.
Then there are those mangroves. We need them but must they only be natural? Can a mangrove be man-grown or does that defeatthe purpose? What about garbage and plastic packets, which seem to proliferate by themselves in some amazing system of geometric progression.
Plastic packet multiplication seems inversely proportional to drives to reduce them: the more successful the drive the more packets you see around you. The sea throws back copious amounts of garbage back at us everyday and then we throw it back and so on.
Do slums contribute to the mess or are they the real city? Should slum dwellers be rehabilitated vertically, horizontally, under the sea, underground or somewhere else? Should the government give them free housing or should they be made to pay?
Suppose we come up with a theory that Mumbai is a valley, a hillside, a delta, a glacier, a cliff, a manifestation of our dreams, a culmination of our nightmares, will this change the city?
Is the coast part of the city or not? Is it a real estate resource inadequately exploited or is it a vital safeguard against the potential ravages of the sea? If we rechristen our chowpatties into eastern and western "seaboards" will that effectively change the way they function? If the sea is used for transportation will that help or hinder us?
Is the government taking us for a ride with all its infrastructure projects or will they really solve our problems? Do we need one million skywalks three storeys tall which are a guaranteed heart-attack giver to anyone over the age of 50? Or will the skywalks solve all our pedestrian problems?
Should we have regular taxis or should they all be fancy call centre cabs? Is a metro railway by definition an underground railway or is it okay to be over ground whenever it feels like it? Doesn't that make it another kind of train service? In which case, why isn't the metro project connected to the Indian Railways and its gigantic suburban
commuter system?
If the Bandra Worli Sealink took over 10 years to make, by the time the rest (Versova to Bandra, Worli to Haji Ali, Haji Ali to Nariman Point) will a tsunami have finished Mumbai off? Does global warming really exist? In which case, do we need less green cover or more in Mumbai?
Will revamping the zoo destroy a vital part of the city's culture? Should builders get more concessions from the government or less? Is the project to refurbish Dharavi a pie in the sky, a giant con, the most wonderful thing after sliced bread? Is cluster development the answer to all our problems or one more reason why the tsunami's coming sooner than we think?
Should all efforts to conserve south Mumbai stop immediately? Is heritage a waste of time or the only reason for our existence? Is there life on Mars?
Has the time for argument passed? Right now, let's concede that Mumbai is a plateau if it gets us out of this mess.
