Lindsay Pereira: Living on a prayer, in a house of cards

A building will fall. One of them does every year. It will either happen by day, scattering panicked local residents in all directions, shutting down streets in a matter of minutes, or at night - ushering in death by the backdoor, snuffing out lives while people sleep. Children will die and senior citizens, usually too frail to escape falling beams, will be the easiest victims. While some of them will depart instantly, some will give up hours later, their hopes fading as they struggle to hear sounds of ineffectual disaster management teams break through the debris that will soon become their graves.

Earlier this month, 8 persons were buried and 22 injured when a three-storey building collapsed in Bhiwandi, Thane, following a spell of incessant rain

It happens every year like clockwork for a number of reasons. Many of our buildings are old, barely standing with the help of bamboo props or odd steel pillars - held together by ropes and prayers of those who reside in them. The BMC does make half-hearted attempts to warn residents of potential disasters, with the help of typewritten notices which, when translated, point at the possibilities of death for which, of course, the BMC is not to be held responsible.

These notices are treated in the same way most of us deal with announcements about new taxes to be added to old ones: with helpless shrugs, as we go about the business of living - too worn out to care about the latest scam being perpetuated upon us by an uncaring government.

If you ever visit the Open Government Data (OGD) Platform India, a website that uses fairly bright colours to mask the horrifying statistics housed within its pages, you will find that over 2,600 Indians die each year on account of what the government calls "structural collapses." Apparently, 3,161 died in one year alone, which means around 8 of our countrymen passed away daily that year on account of something ‘concrete' falling over their heads. It's an astonishing fact if you stop to think about it because each of those deaths could have been prevented. All it would have taken was for our state governments and ruthless builders to be a little more conscientious.

Take a look at the building you live in. If it's a decade old, compare it to older buildings your friends and neighbours live in. Take a walk down Kala Ghoda and look at what the British built, then compare those structures to how your building has aged. Go to the terrace of your building and look for patches of blue tarpaulin covers. They are ubiquitous the minute Mumbai sweeps into view if you happen to be flying in during the monsoon. You find them spread out not just over tiled homes and the asbestos roofs of slums, but draped across the sides of buildings as residents hope that, just this once, the rain won't seep in and leave them vulnerable to death by electrocution. And yet, even as prices of apartments rise by half a crore every other year, the quality of building materials only appears to get poorer. No one asks why.

‘Where do we go?' ask the men and women of condemned buildings. It is a question they ask every year, to everyone who approaches them - journalists, BMC officials, the odd publicity-hungry politician willing to walk in the rain. Where should they go? There are no answers. Transit camps promised to them by civic authorities have horror stories of their own - of families forced to live in squalor for decades, of children becoming teenagers while waiting for promises of accommodation to be met, of families dying broken-hearted thinking about the lives and opportunities they had left behind.

And so, a building will fall. There will be an outcry for 24 hours. Ministers will troop in after informing TV crews about their plan of action. Temporary ‘special' committees will be constituted to probe the incidents and offer solutions. Promises of harsh punishment will be made in the form of carefully prepared statements to the press. Promises of ‘adequate' compensation will be made, along with government jobs for children of victims. Pledges will be taken to conduct structural audits of every building in the vicinity and ‘stern warnings' will be delivered to BMC employees for dereliction of duty.

Nothing will change because those we elect to power don't care about us. Bridges and walls will continue to collapse, illegal buildings will fall in on themselves and thousands will lose their lives every year for no fault of their own. In a civilised country, this would be considered murder. In Mumbai, such incidents are of no consequence as our lives are considered cheap. A year later, it will rain again. And then, another building will fall.

When he isn't ranting about all things Mumbai, Lindsay Pereira can be almost sweet. He tweets @lindsaypereira. Send your feedback to mailbag@mid-day.com