my beach is sick, its bleeding and coughing plastic... please reduce refuse, please reuse...

In my younger days i remm. going to Juhu beach was a wonderful outing...going to a farsan store on JP Road - kadambari and picking up samosas on the way with my parents, standing in the little space between the front seat and the handle of my fathers scooter, reaching the beach, taking walks, sitting and making sand castles - more like sand caves with my foot covered in sand and then gently taking it out - eating the samosas and sometimes even masala chana bought from the local vendor...those days we didn't have a camera, but the memories are engraved in my mind, say the name Juhu beach and the picture is painted right away form me in front of me and  infact i am in the picture myself....don't need too much effort
I'm afraid this image that i have been blessed with, will it be available for the younger generating growing up in this city today? will they be able to remove the impression of long endless stretches of rubbish occupying the stretch of the entire beach here's a few shots..

 every now and then there's these dreadful days on the entire stretch of the beach between versova all the way through khar - where you will not see the sand literally....its an entire  vast spread of man-made waste and refuse...not natural but man made....its a painful sight.

 on my run today i saw all kinds of stuff lying around - toys, bags, bottles, wrappers, used condoms, broken pieces of furniture, glass pieces, utensils, belts, clothes, shoes, car tires, mattress, wallets, ladies bags, backpacks, coconuts, garlands, idols, tons and tons of plastic bags, i mean you name it and it was there...lying in the open butchering the beauty and serenity of the beach....

The refuse problem of this city is not new, and i may not be completely wrong when i say that the BMC is not doing a great job of managing the waste.
At the same time i do strongly feel that the citizens also aren't really dong an impressive job of remmebering the civic duties of living in a cimmunity!!
If the source of waste - us - get mindful of what and how much do we really need to put into that waste bin and what can actually be reused in one form or the other, and also remm. to dispose the waste appropriately - not in open "Nalas"/ out of the window - into the sewer gutters directly, i think at least some of the dump that goes straight into the Arabian sea will be reduced. In fact the BMC waste trucks go to dumping grounds designated for that sole purpose, nothing enters the Arabian- at least officially - so its safe to assume that the waste is actually coming in from the streets via various "Nalas" that open up into the sea, or whatever we dump in the name of religious rituals or sheer laziness to walk to the nearest bin and dump it there.

More details on Mumbai's waste management problem can be found on google in abundance, below are a couple of links i looked up:
http://www.mumbaimania.in/2008/08/mumbais-waste-disposal-problems.html

http://www.burhanifoundationindia.org/newsletters/Vol6_Issue12.pdf

you know you are a biker when....

1. The best of ideas come when u r on. two wheels

 

 

2. You remm. The best decisions u took were while riding

 

 

3. You look for riding distances/scenic routes for far away places, even for those that take 2 days and a night in train...

 

 

4. You are on the road while driving and go..."hmmm sweet curves, I wish I had my bike wid me right now"

 

 

5. You find yourself philosophical while u are riding...

 

 

6. U sing to yourself aloud(sometimes really loud) in the helmet and think u should seriously try fr "Indian Idol"

 

 

7. Sweat = Air conditioning to be

 

 

8. U don't really remm. The milage your bike gives u, but u always know when it's time to tank up - well this one's sorta for the Bullet riders, ok maybe it's jst me, but I think there r more like me somewhere out there ;)

 

 

9. The words "gear up" "re-group" "pit-stop" etc. Suddenly flash memories of your long ride in your eyes.

 

 

10. U always...always see the toll plaza and think Daiumn! I could've saved XX.XX today if I had my bike! Or even better have a tingling feeling thinking about the money u saved!!! 

 

 

11. U look at a Royal Enfield and start figuring things out abt it already...LB?AVL?UCI?Indore?Delhi?

 

 

12. U can stare at a "rotate 360" flash UI image of any motorcycle for a Loooooooong time and still wanna look for images of the same bike...

 

 

13. You drop everything u r doing n listen when someone says the word "Machismo"....

 

 

14. Chrome is charismatic. Period.

 

 

15. U see a Towing vehicle n worry where u parked even if it's a different city that you are in.

 

 

16. You see your fav. Model on a towing vehicle and say "you bastards, better handle her with care!"

 

 

17. Dirt/mud gives character or shine shows love, always a dilemma.

 

 

18. You often use throttle instead of the horn...jst 'coz...

 

 

19. You feel more empowered cruising along, compared to the guy in VW stuck in traffic.

 

 

20. You feel richer with even if it's just the fuel money in your pocket.

 

 

21. It's never too hot, too cold or too wet to ride

 

 

22. If u fall, u getup quickly to see hw badly is "she" hurt!

 

 

23. Bungee cord to you is the same as stethoscope to docs, measure tape to a carpenter, and you have atleast 101 uses for Bungee.

 

 

24. U are now used to pedestrians, stuck rich driver driven luxary car owners, auto/taxi drivers giving u "the look"