We park cars blocking roads, chatter on our cell phones while driving without a care in the world. Throw rubbish outside our house and take great pride in raping women only because they are out at a time when they ought not to be!!!
We eve tease, we drink and create chaos, we bribe. We refuse to stand in ques. When was the last time you actually stopped at a red light, waited patiently for the light to turn green without honking the living day lights out of it?
London, New York, Milan, Sydney and the thousand other world class cities...what do they have in common? World class amenities for their citizens no doubt, but what they have are people who take pride in being dwellers of the great cities. People, who wouldn't spit on the roads, litter their freeways and throw garbage in the river flowing through their cities. In the name of religion or otherwise!
We must be the only capital in the world that treats its river like a gutter. Look at the Thames water front, the Sydney harbour..Why can't we have the Yamuna, pristine and beautiful?
Which brings me back to the main issue. Delhi can't become a world-class city purely because of lack of political will. The slums won't be shifted, the river never cleaned, roads will be potholed and dying and the common man will be at the mercy of the powers to be.
I hope one day, before I die (and I'm only 31) that Delhi does turn into a world-beater, a city people will die to come and stay. And why only Delhi, we can have thousands of world-class cities and towns in this great country. Only if we realize that to become one, we will have to change our mindset. Why not ape the west for what they have done right, rather than just importing the latest Bentleys and Budweiser's, lets import their commitment to improving living standards, of being responsible citizens, taking pride in the city we live in and not wanting to turn it to a graveyard.
I'm glad that's out of my chest, now if I could only figure out a way to get that US visa!!!
first published:February 27, 2006, 16:32 ISTlast updated:February 27, 2006, 16:32 IST
window._taboola = window._taboola || [];_taboola.push({mode: 'thumbnails-mid-article',container: 'taboola-mid-article-thumbnails',placement: 'Mid Article Thumbnails',target_type: 'mix'});
let eventFire = false;
window.addEventListener('scroll', () => {
if (window.taboolaInt && !eventFire) {
setTimeout(() => {
ga('send', 'event', 'Mid Article Thumbnails', 'PV');
ga('set', 'dimension22', "Taboola Yes");
}, 4000);
eventFire = true;
}
});
window._taboola = window._taboola || [];_taboola.push({mode: 'thumbnails-a', container: 'taboola-below-article-thumbnails', placement: 'Below Article Thumbnails', target_type: 'mix' });Latest News
All this talk of Delhi on it's way to becoming a world-class city is hogwash. Utter drivel. IMPOSSIBLE! I'm not being a pessimist, but a world-class city isn't made because of its glass and steel skyscrapers, or the expressways and definitely not by it's multi acre malls. A city becomes world class because of its people. And Delhites aren't people. We are animals. We still can't enjoy the wide roads and expressways because we haven't learnt to drive in a straight line!!!Lane driving is Sane driving, scream the many boards put up at strategic points on our roads, but we still take pride in being insane. Civic sense is something that can only be beaten into us, on our own free will; we'll never want to be civilized.
We park cars blocking roads, chatter on our cell phones while driving without a care in the world. Throw rubbish outside our house and take great pride in raping women only because they are out at a time when they ought not to be!!!
We eve tease, we drink and create chaos, we bribe. We refuse to stand in ques. When was the last time you actually stopped at a red light, waited patiently for the light to turn green without honking the living day lights out of it?
London, New York, Milan, Sydney and the thousand other world class cities...what do they have in common? World class amenities for their citizens no doubt, but what they have are people who take pride in being dwellers of the great cities. People, who wouldn't spit on the roads, litter their freeways and throw garbage in the river flowing through their cities. In the name of religion or otherwise!
We must be the only capital in the world that treats its river like a gutter. Look at the Thames water front, the Sydney harbour..Why can't we have the Yamuna, pristine and beautiful?
Which brings me back to the main issue. Delhi can't become a world-class city purely because of lack of political will. The slums won't be shifted, the river never cleaned, roads will be potholed and dying and the common man will be at the mercy of the powers to be.
I hope one day, before I die (and I'm only 31) that Delhi does turn into a world-beater, a city people will die to come and stay. And why only Delhi, we can have thousands of world-class cities and towns in this great country. Only if we realize that to become one, we will have to change our mindset. Why not ape the west for what they have done right, rather than just importing the latest Bentleys and Budweiser's, lets import their commitment to improving living standards, of being responsible citizens, taking pride in the city we live in and not wanting to turn it to a graveyard.
I'm glad that's out of my chest, now if I could only figure out a way to get that US visa!!!
Comments
0 comment