And for a Friday in Mumbai enjoying the Monsoon in all its glories.
Mumbai is the only city which can withstand the full fury of the monsoon and the Mumbaikar, irrespective of knee deep water on the roads and buses being off, still makes an honest attempt to reach his/her place of work. The maintenance staff, corporation employees, traffic police, relief workers and volunteers are all doing their best to battle along and normalise. Imagine 300 mm of rains within 6 hours in the Western and Eastern suburbs of Mumbai on Monday and within 36 hours the city was back on its feet. At its grueling best, no other city in the country comes anywhere close to Mumbai in its tenacity to normalise and get to “Business as Usual” mode.
The Coastal Road is making tremendous progress. Particularly for those in South Mumbai, the connections to and from Napean Sea Road to Fort is absolutely jaw-dropping. You now enter the bye-pass just before Breach Candy on Warden Road, turning left, get into the Tunnel which takes you below the Malabar Hills, under the sea and ahoy, you are out at Marine drive, all in 6 minutes. And on return, one can take a similar one-way route and avoid all traffic snarls at Peddar Road and Haji Ali and reach Worli. Some of the biggest bottlenecks of the past are all bypassed. What a relief.
The ongoing work-in-progress for the Metros, Coastal Roads, new Flyovers and all constructions coupled with the Monsoon is a tough proposition for the average Mumbaikar. But for the long term benefits, let’s endure the temporary hardships, the tolerant way, the empathetic way, the SEEGOS way.