GENRE: Voices

Mother was diagnosed with schizophrenia. I didn’t even know the word, had never heard it and didn’t even know how to pronounce it. But Schizophrenia discreetly entered our lives way back in 2007-2008. I was a kid then: 7-8 years old. So it was tough to even know what was happening. She would randomly make stories. Once I returned from school after an examination and she said, “I have told your friends' mothers that their sons teased you.” I was simply aghast. Both my friends were a year older than me and lived nearby. No such incident had ever happened.…

Mumbai should aspire to host the Olympics games in 2036, and working towards being Olympics ready will ensure Mumbai gets good infrastructure by creating jobs and helping the local economy. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has been selecting a different city to host the Olympic games every four years since the first modern games were held in Athens in 1896. India should compete for the bid and nominate Mumbai as the host for the Olympics games 2036. The crucial chance to make that happen will be in 2023 when the IOC meets in Mumbai. I am a volunteer for Mumbai March, an…

I could barely contain my excitement as I stood looking at the Biswa Bangla painting ‘Making of the Goddess’ at the airport. It was Panchami and I was finally in Kolkata to be a part of ‘Pujo,’ which is synonymous with Durga Puja for anyone from Bengal. I had read somewhere that there were around 2500-3000 pandals in Kolkata alone this year and I wanted to see at least 1% of them if not more. After all, Durga Puja in Kolkata had been recently declared by the UNESCO to be on the representative list of the intangible cultural heritage of…

Mumbai's suburban railway network, also known as the ‘local train’, is famous across the country for its robust network. While it connects the entire city, its expansion has also added pressure to existing infrastructure. Overcrowded trains and station platforms are a common sight, especially at busy stations like Dadar, Kurla and Thane. Trains on average carry 2.6 times more than the official capacity carrying 7.5 million passengers every day. When it comes to railway station infrastructure, safety, hygiene and accessibility become paramount for women and children who use trains regularly. Railway toilets form an important part of this infrastructure. Read more: Mumbai’s…

The festival season is almost synonymous with the sale season. It's an excuse to splurge, buy and gift. Advertisements and discounts attract us to many such offers and our shopping carts, virtual and otherwise overflow with binge buys. But this rampant consumerism in festivals is incredibly damaging to our environment, increasing the burden on our resources, and adding to the mounting levels of waste and pollution. With Diwali around the corner, Citizen Matters was joined by two enthusiastic and spirited environmentalists for a panel discussion held on Instagram live, titled 'Conscious consumers: Celebrating in a sustainable and responsible way' on October…

In September 2022, a lawyer, while traveling to work, was molested inside a local train. She shared her ordeal on Twitter, in a detailed thread that outlined not only the incident but her experience as she tried to report it to the police immediately after the incident. At the time of posting, police negligence towards her case pushed her to take to social media. Earlier in 2022, police data revealed that there was a sharp rise in sexual assault cases in the city in the last five years. Crime against women rose from 1,194 (reported) cases in 2017 to 1,541…

Indore city has been declared the cleanest city in India for the 6th time in a row in the recently announced Swachh Survekshan 2022 results. Indore has consistently performed well in the Swachh Survekshan survey since 2017 due to its integrated approach to solid waste management and efficient waste processing. The city, with a population of nearly 2 million, generates about 1,900 tonnes of solid waste per day. The Indore Municipal Corporation has successfully integrated the collection, transportation, processing and disposal of solid waste generated in the city.  What made this feat possible is the rigorous waste management system Indore…

I live in Kranti Nagar, Kandivali, at the base of a hill in an informal settlement. Our homes are made of tin sheets and we have received everything from water supply to electricity, but after a long struggle. Heavy rainfall coupled with a poor sewage system has made the monsoons unbearable. The water cannot flow into the gutters as they are choked to the brim with waste, causing them to overflow and the water to collect entering our homes after a round of heavy showers. Our roads are not concretised or tarred and our homes are makeshift shelters or incrementally…

Land is scarce in Mumbai. The island city to the south, an island only in name, is surrounded by the sea on all but one side. Towards the north, it is bordered by the neighbouring city of Thane. With such space constraints, to accommodate a population of 12 million, there is only one-way housing can go, and that is up.  How much housing can be built is thus less determined by land than by the amount of floor space, multiplied when the number of floors in a building reaches greater heights. This is controlled by the Floor Space Index, or FSI,…

Within the narrow lanes of Thubarahalli, garbage dumps on one side and tin shacks on the other, a thumping noise is heard. Two trucks make their way into this neighbourhood. About 30 volunteers in yellow shirts, ‘India’ written on them, follow the trucks in cars and vans. After the trucks are parked, people quickly start assembling near the  vehicles. They stand in lines and spots demarcated by the volunteers for better organisation. The trucks have brought packaged food items, which is some relief for the families whose lives have been disrupted by the floods. One by one, queues of people start…