Speaking truth to power

Dear BMC, you did not hear my civil whispers through letters over a decade. This is why I am now shouting... because my truth must speak its language to power

In 2007, when Vaashu Bhagnani first developed Pinnacle Dreams in Juhu, I took on the powerful film producer about the gross irregularity of his construction — the minimum setback required for construction from the neighbour's wall was lacking. 

For over a decade since, I have lived beside a building that has grown into a shocking glossary of illegalities.

When completed, Pinnacle Dreams's eight stories of 'vertical parking' were a sham: the lift shaft to haul cars to their parking spaces did not exist. The parking spaces were illegally turned into inhabitable spaces such as living rooms and storerooms.

For a decade, I wrote to the BMC highlighting building offences. This summer, the new owner, Kumar Shah, commenced further "repairs" on the building, which has bamboo scaffolding all over it. Apparently, Pinnacle Dreams is being painted at the height of the monsoon! Or maybe they're illegally converting garage spaces into more inhabitable spaces?

How Pinnacle Dreams still stands, in spite of blatantly visible irregularities, is testament to the BMC's shocking ability to defy the law. The main breach here is clearly visible to our naked eye — vertical parking is not allowed to be covered beyond a five-feet wall. Instead, a giant glass façade conceals the dazzling shams of Pinnacle Dreams. This glass façade must be brought down. Let us see what is behind it.

I have spoken about this building now, after 10 years, as I am tired — exhausted beyond measure — from the endlessly noisy extensions at Pinnacle Dreams. Imagine, living beside a building where construction work never stops in a decade! But these are not legitimate repairs and additions, as one expects in any building.

These disturbing, rancorous sounds are resultant from illegal processes that convert 'garages' into personal spaces. Imagine the pollution from such extensions; imagine the sound of someone grinding stone all day for 10 years.

mid-day's July 24 report

In the intervening years, I began to spend more time in a village in Goa — I was tired of Mumbai, there were hardly any open spaces, roads were flooded, folks were always ill, the air was a gas chamber on low. What was the point of hanging out in hell?

But my privileges of escape do not blind me; in fact, they beholden me to see for myself, and for others. I bother because Mumbai will always be home. I could — and should — have remained silent. 

Silence is the easier route out. But one's selective silence is challenged only by a collective desire to see a better world. The Greek word parrhesiastes translates to someone who 'speaks truth to power'. This is why I reached out to mid-day: to speak my truthto power.

From the public gallery of this paper, I recommence my conversation with the BMC, and specifically K west ward officers. Why did you allow the vertical parking in this building to remain enclosed in glass for 10 years when it violates your own code? If perchance a demolition notice was issued on the garage area, what did you do about it in 10 years? Why did you never once respond to this citizen's complaint letters to your ward office? 

You did not hear my civil whispers through letters over a decade. This is why I am now shouting — not to embarrass the BMC officers, or to 'punish' the present owner of Pinnacle Dreams. I am shouting because my truth must speak its language to power. And you, dear BMC, must hear me now.

Barring that, I will write to Mr Narendra Modi — tweeting images of your vile complicities; I will tweet to him biographies of each ward officer and publicly remind him that if he won an election on the promise of a corruption-free India, then what of this monstrous breach of law? Mr Modi cannot collect first world-level taxes from us and then expect us to live out a banana republic bureaucracy.

To the BMC I say: I am not attacking you. But I, like millions of others, am wounded by how our city has been quartered up and cut down for sale under your watch. Where will our children play and how will they breathe if we eat up Aarey Colony? Where will we swim if the DP reads down Juhu lake's green zone status and makes it invisible?

You owe me an answer not because I am angry and saddened. Rather, you owe this city an answer because our taxes pay your salaries: for there is no such thing as a "government job". There is only tax payer-sponsored employment within the present government. So now, I am simply asking for what I have paid for. 

Shanghvi is an award-winning novelist who has contributed to the New York Times, TIME, and other publications

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