My little by-lane is concretised

The new leaves have come on the trees. They are light green in colour just like my Camlin colour pencil, by that name. Later the colour of the leaves will turn to bottle green or dark green. For me colours are still from my first set of colour pencils I had. When I was growing up, I did not see much of crayons anywhere.  The trees are full of leaves. Chopping has not happened by BMC in recent times. They are  laying the near perfect pavements of our area again with new paver tiles. What can I do getting upset about it? Our tax money being wasted and some contractor making money along with a corrupt officer. They are putting a concrete boundary around some trees and then someone is filling the gap with more concrete instead of mud. By the time this pavement work gets done, the by lanes will be ruined. After all the fancy road repair work last year, the roads in Taikalwadi already have potholes.

Shivaji Park has become a food hub since last one year. I remember it not having any food vendors in the vicinity earlier. Now there is wraps and rolls, sandwiches, dosas, Chinese bhel, Vada Pav and more available inside the Shivaji Park.  Ever since land has been given to make Saheb's memorial at Shivaji Park, some more trees have been trimmed. They have concretised the memorial area instead of planting more trees. All plants have been chopped down to twenty inches above ground level. There is a Jyot burning round the clock with some crazy expense per month. Lot of food vendors have come up near it. Some years back they put up flood lights at Shivaji Park which are on the whole night. The walkaway around the park has more concrete now. Two artistic concrete walls have come up. The Ganpati temple has encroached a lot of land in reconstruction though they keep denying it. All this at my small Shivaji Park. The Kohinoor Square is an ugly structure coming up in Dadar with a lot of political clout. I fail to understand how Dadar West will handle this new influx of people and vehicles. Shiv Sena Bhawan to Plaza cinema is a traffic clogged road even at six am. With this new building and thousands of vehicles movement into Kohinoor Square, where are the roads? The glass panels of Ruby Mills building called the Cube and the Kohinoor Square reflect sun rays in the whole area. They are going to be running massive air-conditioning bills with all that glass in the buildings. Our temperatures have actually gone up with the onslaught of Cube, Square and W54 which is a residential project.And once their AC plants will be working, I shudder to think what will happen. There is no space for all the trucks carrying construction material to move in and out. There are traffic jams being caused in the quiet by lanes right now. Why did the BMC give these buildings all the required permissions? Square is the ugliest building in Mumbai up till now. Is all this eco friendly? Most malls around Mumbai are shutting down due to lack of footfalls or their inability to pay their bills. One more mega mall, office space, hotel and residential project that too not low cost or for the middle class.

 Trees being cut for infrastructure development is still understandable but this browning and concretising of my Dadar and Matunga west without any foresight and planning is unbearable.