Rubble

I’m out of the house and into the back of a cab, lady’s shirt patterns in hand, green T-shirt, black braces, jeans and a light patina of sweat. Rob’s place is up a hill in a dead end side road, so the walk to the main road is short and downhill. You pass the French international school on the way. Normally closed up, I must have arrived at drop-off time this morning. Lots of fair haired, tanned children running about, being herded by parents and teachers.

At the foot of the hill, there’s an old man that spends his nights camped out with his dog in front of a shop and his days squatting in the shade of the parked cars. He never asks and I’ve never given, but I know Rob hands him Rs10 every time he goes out to buy cigarettes – some kind of penance I guess. I think he also gets a little something from the shop and perhaps the end of day cast offs from the surrounding fruit sellers.

There are lines of them. I’ve never understood why businesses huddle together like that. I presume that the increased sales compensate for tighter competition.

Anyway, I’m now in the back of a cab, Hindi music blaring out, compeating with the horns. I’m going to meet Mani at Shamim’s. The BMCC is demolishing all the encroaching buildings along the main road by Shamim’s factory. His is just ok, but the demolition – men with hammers – has weakened his walls.

Amazingly, the job of strengthening them lays with Shamim, not the landlord. I suppose higherarchy of needs dictates that he’ll be forced to act first. He’s got all his equipment, employees and himself to protect. Seems a little out of order to me.

The whole area is now almost unrecognisable. Rubble and wood covering the ground like a bomb’s gone off. Mani tells me that they’ll clear it and put in a new road to the port. Not, I suspect, before a few places have been rebuilt.

~ by matthewgrey on 22 May, 2008.