A day without excitement

On Monday, after a brunch at 59er Viney and 61er Purnima Sethi's place, we set out for Mumbai at around 11 am. When we approached Panvel, I got the shock of my life as this one restaurant wayside village was now a high rise city with the new International Mumbai Airport being constructed at its perimeter.

In the 1970, Thomas Abraham of Southern Investments and also head of the SI Construction company had written a fascinating book about how the cities should be planned. He had created a financially self generating model and also looked at the structure of the city in relation to the different age groups that would inhabit a growing metropolis. Based on this, we had prepared a joint paper called "Rural Urbanisation" which took into account maximisation of the use of the resources and the economics of such a venture.

After the seed capital, Abraham's model was that urbanisation would be financially self generating. But the structure of the development HAD to be controlled.

In today's context only the worst of Abraham's model is in place in that it is self financing but the growth is unplanned and the new metropolises are slums even before the first building is set up.

The skyline at Panvel is proof of this.

We managed to get into Mumbai without too much hassle as the driver knew the routes where the traffic was minimal.

After a rest, I went to see Cathedralite 56er, Shyam Chainani, Honary Secretary of the Bombay Environmental Action Group. It was fascinating to see him work in his childhood home (where his father Chief Justice Chainani had lived) which he has converted into his office hub. He is inundated with material and he is working on several fronts. I wished I could help him as all the causes he is working for are noble ones, but it requires physical presence in Mumbai, or India, to be of service to Shyam.

If any of you are action oriented, please do meet up with Shyam and do what needs to be done. India, and especially the larger cities in India will surely collapse under this unrestricted and unplanned growth now in progress. Already, Bangalore, as a city, is grinding to a halt while all those software engineers sit in their ivory towers oblivious of how they are the one's responsible for this chaos. While their bosses rake in the money, these youngsters labour under the illusion that they are contributing to India's growth, little realising that each one of them is part of the problem.

Dinner, that evening, was with one of my dearest of friends, 56er Ubi and his wife, Bubbles. Also present were 49er Yezad Kapadia from Delhi and his brother, 56er Sorab and his wife. 56er Meena and her husband, Vikram Bhatt, 59ers Harmo, Hasnain, and Shivi and his 61er wife, Suchita, were also part of the guests along with Ubi's youngest sister, Dimple.

It was an interesting evening where all topics under the sun concerning our Alma mater were discussed threadbare. Annikki and I came out "educated" by our peers.

We all agreed that the present Alumni Dinner on Founders' Day has to be changed in format if it is going to be an event worth attending. If it retains its present format with no structure and 750+ attendees, no purpose will be achieved. I certainly would not like to take part in chaos!

Monday was, therefore, a day of relaxation and wonderful food dished up by Ubi and Bubbles.