Tomorrow Never Dies

“Furthermore, he asked the committee members to make the new capital unique and slum free.” I read the line a few more times to confirm if I was reading it right. Yes ‘slum free’, like ‘bacteria free’, ‘pest free’? Well, no, this should have to be the 'slum-free' as envisaged by the several propitious-sounding poverty eradication programs set up by the government to provision basic social amenities to the urban poor, the slum dwellers. The words above had poured forth from a political wizard envisioning a master plan for the building-up of a full-fledged township which would soon take shape to become a brand new State capital.

Curling back in to my couch and re-adjusting my tea cup to relieve the strain on my index finger, I muse on...(ah...the woes of an arm-chair activist..)

Well, who would want to live alongside slums anyway?..

The arm-chair aadmi flares up within and.. *ek tight thappad*.

'Who would want to live in slums anyway?'.. I correct myself falteringly..

*A fit of swishing, swooshing & tapping on the tablet screen ensues,  followed by enlightened looks...*

A sip of tea...

The Wiki definition itself is rather inauspicious. ‘A slum is a heavily populated urban informal settlement characterized by substandard housing and squalor.’

Wiki also mentions that ‘The formation of slums is closely linked to urbanization.’

Quite a disturbing thought. 

If slums are the by-products of expansion itself they are bound to multiply. What if …by chance …by hook or crook, the whiff of a slum gets past the utopian borders of our new & sanitized elite settlements? What if the tidal wave of migrants lashing on to the land in search of construction work and other odd jobs don’t recede back into their oceans of misery and squalor elsewhere? What if after toiling and sweating to build up the city, they then decide to stay back & pollute the entire city with their mere existence?... as it usually happens, resulting once again in the great divide that is seen to criss-cross & pock mark civilizations.

Oh, or were the politico's words merely hinting at the all popular ‘inclusive development’ agenda that is looming tantalizingly over the nation's horizon? Let me not exert any pressure on my neurons then...

Perhaps by saying 'slum-free' the minister might just have meant that the new capital will have an extensive housing project aimed at housing the migrant workers and the impoverished section of the society as well! In that case many kudos to him. May the ever-increasing line of slum development schemes of the government shower their blessings on him and his committee for decades to come, as they normally do...before stretching themselves way too much to become thin lines that ultimately blur themselves out, so that new lines can be strategically drawn in their place, across the foreheads of generations that populate the periphery of society.  

Several sips of tea & my cup is empty...


What really awaits the shanty slum dweller of the world’s third-largest economy at the end of the tunnel tomorrow morning?

I look at my cup...empty but for the leftover dregs at the bottom. 

I regret having started to think at all.

For at least some, tomorrow never dies...simply because.. for them that tomorrow is never ever born.

Photo Courtesy: Google