Have you smsed your name and 'jaag' to 8558 yet in support of the 'public interest litigation' being filed against "the govt, BMC, mtnl, railways, police etc for the blatant apathy & civic admn 2wrds our city"?
Of course you have. By Thursday night 15,000 smses had been received. By this evening it would surely have crossed the 100,000 mark.
Not that this would be any kind of record considering the numbers Indian Idol and KBC generated from Mumbai alone.
My point is - an SMS involves no pain. And as we all know - no pain, no gain. If solutions were just about smsing our outrage Mumbai would already be Shanghai...
The next step
The people who have filed the PIL are to be commended, of course. But tell me, if you were to be asked to show your support by turning up at court hearings - which may stretch on for the next 1 year - would you be as willing?
Would you take a casual leave to physically take up PIL related work?
Would you actually get involved with an NGO by donating your time and expertise? If not on a working day, on your precious weekend??
The answer to these questions, I suspect, is going to be a whispered "no".
In this city of dreams, "me" and "my work" always comes first.
And so, much as I am amused by Mahesh Bhatt's endless quest for soundbytes and self-publicity - if that's the psychic earning he's getting which motivates him to spend his time on initiating a PIL - we need to applaud his effort.
If there is a lawyer willing to take up this work for free, we must applaud that effort.
And, in our own small way, we must try and make some kind of physical effort.
For example, in 'normal' times, we must prevail upon our local corporators to do their jobs. It may involve 'wasting' time, dealing with red tape etc. But it has to be done... And not just by grey haired senior citizens.
Otherwise we will remain armchair (with mobile in hand) critics. And having vent our anger by 'thumb support' to the cause, get on with life as usual. Until the next time.
And yes, all of the above applies to me - as much as anyone of you reading this!
