If Mumbaikars were Sims, they would have long fled

Almost coinciding with my move to Mumbai 15 years ago was the purchase of a computer for my children. Both were under 10 years of age then. With the PC came the CD ROM-based games. While the kids played a variety of games, my favourites were two: Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego, a game that taught you world geography and history as you played, and SimCity, a game where you could build and manage your own city. [caption id=“attachment_101795” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“I think of Mumbai when I recall SimCity. Reuters”]  [/caption] Carmen was good fun for a bit, but SimCity captivated and enthralled. Before I go further, for the benefit of those of you who haven’t played the game, here’s a brief on the game, courtesy Wikipedia:

The objective of SimCity, as the name of the game suggests, is to build and design a city, without specific goals to achieve. The player can mark land as being zoned as commercial, industrial, or residential, add buildings, change the tax rate, build a power grid, build transportation systems and take many other actions, in order to enhance the city. Once able to construct buildings in a particular area, the too-small-to-see residents, known as Sims, may choose to construct and upgrade houses, apartment blocks, light or heavy industrial buildings, commercial buildings, hospitals, churches, and other structures. The Sims make these choices based on such factors as traffic levels, adequate electrical power, crime levels, and proximity to other types of buildings—for example, residential areas next to a power plant will seldom appreciate to the highest grade of housing.

So you built a city, watched as citizens happily paid you taxes, you smiled as the city grew. Life was good – till you made a mistake, such as not keeping an eye on the growing education needs of the city, or forgetting that you need a larger airport, and so on. Make a few of such errors, and the population from ‘your’ city would move out, presumably to greener pastures. When the population left, it gutted you. You scrambled to stem the rot, correcting your errors, quickly, before you were left with a degenerating ghost city. And I think of Mumbai when I recall SimCity. “The Sims make these choices based on such factors as traffic levels, adequate electrical power, crime levels, and proximity to other types of buildings — for example, residential areas next to a power plant will seldom appreciate to the highest grade of housing.” In real life, real people, not Sims, make real choices based on similar criteria. If decision-making in real life was as simple as it is in the game, millions of Mumbaikars would have disappeared to a new city, based on their daily travails with traffic, commuting, increasing crime, corruption, poor development, lack of parking, ineffectiveness of the police, illegal encroachments, growth of slums, lack of water and the quality of water, slow pace of infrastructure projects, the abject lack of a sense of responsibility of those in power. Since coming here 15 years ago, I’ve seen the city degenerate on each one of these factors. Unfortunately, living is real, and, frustrated as one is, one can’t just up and out. There are other parameters as well; your job, your friends, your children’s schooling, your aged parents, and so on. Life is real; it’s not a game. Sadly, for the politicians who run this city, it is one.