The annual recurrence of the pothole menace is top of mind for Mumbai, and a new citizen-driven initiative is using rap music to address it
Five days ago, a 35-year-old schoolteacher, Sana Khan, was driving down the Western Express Highway in Goregaon on her scooty. It was around 4 pm, and her vehicle toppled over after skidding on an uneven road, according to her relatives. A truck was right behind her. The driver didn't apply the brakes in time and Khan died on the spot. Eyewitnesses — who claim that her body was sliced into two — nabbed the trucker and handed him over to the police. The cops put the man behind bars after registering a case of negligent driving. They say that they are now scanning CCTV footage from the spot to ascertain the exact details of the case. Meanwhile, Khan has become just another statistic.
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The incident raises one big question — who really killed Sana Khan? Was it the truck driver? Was it a pothole? Or is the actual culprit an unnamed entity hiding in the shadows in the corridors of power?
These are the sort of questions that Muse Foundation, a city-based youth-movement organisation, is trying to raise through a new initiative called Wrap the Hole Challenge. The idea is to invite people to send in rap tracks that address the pothole menace in their city. Each track has to be a minute-long or less. Hindi and English are the only two languages allowed. And once the organisation has enough material in its kitty, its members will ensure that all the rap tracks reach the state government departments concerned, in order to prick the conscience of the babus there, and hopefully stir them into action.
Adarsh Pradeepkumar and MC Mawali
Adarsh Pradeepkumar, secretary at Muse Foundation, tells us, "Potholes bother all of us and they have been taking lives left, right and centre. So, we came up with a programme in 2018 called PWD — Pothole Warrior Department [a pun on the Public Works Department]. Taking its activities forward, we started the Wrap the Hole Challenge as this year's creative campaign. We are targeting the Mumbai Metropolitan Region, where organisations like the BMC and TMC turn a blind eye to the issue. Four people died last year, clearly due to potholes. But no action was taken against the contractors or the municipal corporations. This year, we have lost two people already. Sana was actually one of our teammates' colleagues, and she was a really loveable person. But again, it's the driver who's been arrested. So the bigger question is, when are we going to hold the authorities accountable?"
He adds that they chose rap music to tap into the genre's growing popularity. And given its socially conscious roots, it's also a style of music that suits the purpose at hand. Aklesh Sutar aka MC Mawali of Swadesi, a city-based collective that uses hip-hop as a medium to point a finger at the authorities, is one person who backs this challenge. He tells us, "If you simply complain, then the municipality people will say, 'Arre, yeh toh mere ko gaali de raha hai. Main kyun sunu iski baat?' But if you present your grievances in the form of music, embedding your message in a song through a figure of speech, the chances of it being heard are higher."
That sounds like a logical way of thinking. And initiatives like this challenge are a step in the right direction. But the onus, at the end of the day, must lie in the hands of the civic authorities because with the power vested in them, it's their job to make our lives, and not just our rides, smoother.
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