Column

At all underground rail stations in London next to the free tube maps, you will now find copies of a booklet called ‘Help shape London’s future: the mayor’s transport strategy’. The booklet invites all commuters to study the policies and proposals contained in it and give their opinions on an attached form.

It is a pretty impressive document, outlining Boris Johnson’s plans for London’s transport including its railways, underground train system and buses plus plans for car traffic, pedestrians and most emphatically, cyclists. The proposals are for a five year period but take into consideration likely developments till 2030.

My first thought was if only we had a real mayor of Mumbai, with the powers that London mayors have. My second was, suppose we did have an equally powerful mayor of Mumbai would he or she have the vision to produce such a document?

I doubt it. I doubt it because for years the problems of this city’s transportation have been staring us in the face but nothing much has been done about them. The suburban rail service has only got worse because the number of passengers has increased, while the bus services have gone worse because the number of cars has increased. Everyone who lives in the city has a solution but who’s willing to give a hearing?

The Haiti earthquake is in the news everyday as I am sure it is all over the world. In Britain, like in the US, they are doing something about it. During the performance of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Arabian Nights at Stratford-on-Avon, they announced that a collection would be made at the end of the show. The actors got off the stage, took a bucket each and walked through the audience collecting money. Rupees four lakhs was collected in a short time. In the US, the massive efforts of George Clooney and other Hollywood actors have been well publicised and deservedly applauded.

But even the man on the street in Britain has got involved. In offices they are doing Bring-and-Buy sales to raise money. Play readings, charity raves, and oddball things like Hats for Haiti are everywhere. The youngest fundraiser was 7-year-old Charlie Simpson who decided to go around his local park riding his little bicycle and with a large starting contribution from Simon Cowell raised a whopping Rs1.32 crore!

Also dominating the news was Kay Gilderdale. Her daughter Lynn was struck with a serious form of ME at the age of 14.The illness left her paralysed so that she lived in a state of helplessness and constant pain and tried to commit suicide several times. Finally in desperation, she asked her mother to help which Kay did with a cocktail of drugs. Kay was charged by the state on the grounds that ‘the law does not allow someone to take the life of another, regardless of how compassionately they do it.’

The jury took a different view and gave a Not Guilty verdict. This contrasted starkly with the case of Frances Inglis, who afew months earlier helped her son who was struck by an incurable and totally incapacitating illness, to die. Here the jury took a completely different view and Inglis was sentenced to a minimum of nine years in prison.

Do we have any clarity on the law in cases like this in India? In Britain as these two cases have highlighted, the law is a mess.
BBC TV news has a longish item about the latest exhibition to open at the Saatchi Gallery. It features contemporary art from India. Prominent among the exhibits is a Subodh Gupta installation which piles on in haphazard fashion, stainless steel pots and pans and tiffin carriers and makes a huge heap of them.

I suppose there is a subtle message there about rampant consumerism and starving Indians and a world gone topsy-turvy. The utensils seem firmly stuck together but if they were to come loose they could send out their message with a
wonderful clatter too.