City Slicking

A shocking and sensational headline on a rather less talked about newspaper-DNA caught my eye. The header read-‘Killer’ expressway sees 240% rise in deaths. Our Expressway- our very own celebrated Mumbai-Pune expressway has seen this steep rise in accidental deaths in the past year, while we brood about traffic jams, bad roads and mundane urban problems. This in fact, is a serious cause for concern.

The expressway is a driver’s paradise and its quite obvious, drivers would make good of this chance and drive at breakneck speeds (ask me).But this stat is frightening. Sample this-165 deaths in 2008, compared to 69 in 2007, which as stated earlier is a 240% rise. This of course, is just the death toll, other accidents not accounted for. Cops apparently are rendered helpless against booking these rash drivers, because of some regional district booking problems blah blah. Shockingly, there are no speedometers with the highway police. Even so, this piece of news should serve as a deterrent enough against rash, reckless driving on highways. Because, after all hospital ceilings are boring!

But how can I forget to mention my beloved favorites. Bombay Times (sorry BT) says Naomi Campbell has decided to walk the ramp to pay a tribute to 26/11 victims. And some big ‘designer’ names are set to join her. Noble thought. Just one query though. If these fashion people are going to come down here, walk up and down some ramps at Mumbai fashion week or whatever, how is that going to benefit terror victims? Beats me. As far as I can remember no mention of charity or proceeds going to victims was mentioned. Well if that’s true, all I would say is even if one bereaved family member of the victims is allowed into the hall where the fashion show happens(not that any of them would be interested in coming and watching),it would at least send out a message of compassion and support. But obviously that’s not going to happen. I guess it’s just in ‘fashion’ these days to do stuff and pay tributes to or dedicate it to tragedy struck people. It’s an outrageous and sad state of affairs, to say the least. And this we print as 1^st page headlines. Appalling!