Puneites and Mumbaikars

Pune in the monsoons is a hell-hole – the pot-holes are legendary. The Pune Municipal Corporation fills them witha mixture of mud and bricks, and the resulting slush is awful. Each year, Puneites complain, the local papers are full of pictures each day about the worst pot-holed streets in Pune, and yet Puneites take it as their lot in life! Puneites are too tolerant and seem to take anything dished out to them, unlike Mumbaikars who are very vocal – as a result Mumbai has become very clean with excellent wide roads most places and they have now started fines of upto Rs.1000 for littering and Rs. 500 for spitting. Peeing on the roads is not acceptable either and if you do attempt it, you are likely to get stopped by a plainclothes lady police-officer who will fine you, as my driver found out to his chagrin.

The mayor made a farce of threatening to resign within 4 days if the roads were not fixed, and to save her job at the end of 4 days declared that the PMC had indeed made a valiant effort and that most roads were fixed! A month later the roads were the same or much worse, but of course people had forgotten the mayor's promise, and the local papers are too polite to remind anyone!