Landmark? Next to the Sharad Pawar pothole

Civic elections in Mumbai are supposed to happen in 2012. The ruling Shiv Sena has been in power for 20 years and faces anti-incumbency, besides the issue of a vote split thanks to two Senas aiming at the same vote bank. Meanwhile, Mumbai’s civic infrastructure is in such a mess that if you tell a harried Mumbaikar like me that stale joke about NASA setting up lunar simulation centres on Mumbai’s potholed roads that are worse than lunar craters, you’ll get slapped.

Every newspaper’s Mumbai edition has the same recycled seasonal stories on Mumbai’s infamous potholes - the municipal corporation (the BMC) spends obscene amounts of money on maintaining ‘roads’, buys high-tech machines it promptly puts into storage, and so on and so forth, but all we citizens gets are potholes.

So, with angry citizens and an election staring them in the face, what do you think our city fathers discussed in one of their recent meetings? How to deal with the potholes? Technology that would ensure repaired roads stay that way for a week at the least, rather than just a day as it is now?

No. Something more important.

Perhaps they discussed India’s drubbing in England in the Test series in England?

No. What!? Even more important?

Yes. What Mumbai’s city fathers discussed was of something of far greater importance to Mumbai and the world. The renaming of Mumbai’s roads .

And you thought our politicians were worried about their jobs with scams being exposed faster than Indian wickets were falling in England?

So, since it’s clear our city fathers will do nothing but rename roads, despite there being increasingly and depressingly lesser evidence of roads, and all we see are potholes, and there’s precious little we can do about it, here’s what I propose.

Let’s name the potholes. And even rename them if you like.

So, I’m naming the giant crater outside my building after my local corporator, Sharad Pawar from the NCP (namesake, not the real Pawar—this pothole isn’t big enough for someone of the stature of the senior Pawar.)

Also, please don’t name any major pothole after Mahatma Gandhi. Granted, the Father of our Nation would have been the first to name a pothole after himself if it could embarrass civic authorities into some action, but let’s respect him more than our city fathers who will name one arterial road after him and then proceed to practise the very opposite of what he preached and lived.

Remember that the Congress may not like potholes named after Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi. If this pothole naming plan catches on, they might want to name some potholes themselves, and they’ll find the shiniest and best pieces and name it after their erstwhile leaders. Rajiv Gandhi Sea Link in Mumbai and the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport in Hyderabad come to mind.

At the same time, I’m sure the Shiv Sena would want to choose which pothole they want to name after Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj.

But some suggestions do come to mind. A pothole named after our honourable Prime Minister Manmohan Singh must be one that seems non-existent, but destroys your axle when you drive over it. Remember how he dealt with the Communists over the Indo-US Nuclear Bill? Of course, since those heady days then the nation has witnessed only the embarrassing silence and none of the strength, but that’s another story.

And any pothole outside an RSS or allied organisation office that’s larger than Digvijay Singh’s mouth (thanks to the foot perennially stuck there) should be named after the RSS’ biggest bugbear today.

The pothole you keep forgetting about, only to curse yourself when you slide into it, should be named — in keeping with the times — the Suresh Kalmadi pothole.

So, what are you waiting for. While I go and change my mailing address to now include ‘Near Sharad Pawar Pothole’, why don’t you go name some potholes yourself, tell us why you named it after some worthy, and send us pictures while you’re at it.

Seriously, if this catches on, it might embarrass the BMC to do something about potholes other than throw good money after bad.

But don’t count on it.