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ShareBeautifying the city
The BMC is going on a beautification drive again ('City streets to get hep, new furniture', DNA, October 28). The plans to install user-friendly, world class street furniture in each of the seven zones in the city sound nice in theory. But I hope the BMC takes a lesson from the previous beautification drive that the Marine Drive was subjected to.
--Prakash Kamat, via email
Stricter measures needed
The report 'Woman on morning walk stabbed' (DNA, October 28) reflects badly on the law and order situation in the city. The beat marshalls reportedly posted in the locality were sadly not available when the robbery-murder took place. This is not the first time such an incident has happended -- such incidents occur regularly in some localities like Vasant Vihar in Thane. Police patrolling needs to be increased and perhaps the citizens should leave the jewellery at home while going out on a stroll.
--V Subramanyan, Thane
Unknown connections
I don't think the Nobel laureate of Indian origin, Venkatraman Ramakrishnan is behaving in a haughty manner by stating that unknown Indians are claiming that they personally know him. He's just being candid. "Indians have the habit of excavating and exploring the last and lost vestiges of a person's connexions once he becomes famous," wrote Nirad C Chaudhury in Autobiography of an Unknown Indian. No one cared for Ramakrishnan until he got the Nobel but after winning it, the whole India is singing paeans about his stupendous achievement. It's high time we paid heed to those who have the potential but not the wherewithal to surge ahead in life.
--Sumit S Paul, Calcutta
Posters are art too
I couldn't help chuckling when I read news stories about how angry young activists of the "Wallproject" felt when they saw film posters on the walls of Tulsi Pipe road. Street art is usually anarchic and subversive -- their project, on the other hand was done with the full co-operation of the civic authorities, while the posters were actually "illegal", so I would say they are more interesting than some silly, amateurish paintings. Film posters are an intrinsic part of the Mumbai landscape and lend a certain unique charm to our metropolis; are they now to be banned to accommodate some naive kids who have suddenly discovered officially-sanctioned graffiti? I think the producers were wrong in apologising for having pasted those posters. Let us have more of them and less of bogus 'art.'
--Gautam Mehta, via email
