Mumbai Drowns Again. Fourteen Dead, Nine Injured. City Stranded In Flood Waters. Central Railway Services Stop. Flights Cancelled. Suburbs Powerless.

Yaawwn... Time for Mumbai’s Monsoon Post Mortem.

And time, again, for the yearly soul-searching. How, alas, will our sunken city — recently ranked the world’s tenth most important commercial centre — attain “shanghification”?

Time, too, for the Chinese game of ping-pong between the Congress-led government and the Shiv Sena-led municipality. (May the Least Accountable win). Meanwhile, Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh has skipped off on a ten-day junket to the US, where he’s wooing investors to our sinking ship.

Absurd. But not half as absurd as Mumbai’s reaction to its annual dunking.

Last week, as the city struggled for a life jacket, the Citizens Action Group — a panel of eminent Mumbaikars including Jamshyd Godrej, Anand Mahindra and HDFC chief Deepak Parekh — shot off a letter to the prime minister, suggesting that Mumbai’s port lands be freed for cultural and recreational purposes on the lines of London’s Canary Wharf.

Now isn’t this just what we need! I mean, sure, modern drainage, motorable roads, electricity, toilets, potable water, schools, houses and hospitals are important too, but these, presumably, can wait.

As for the rest of us ordinary mortals, we are thrilled at yet another chance to demonstrate our famous spirit of survival — cheerfully doing laps in our living rooms and wading stoically off to work on submerged tracks while our kids splash gleefully in the viral soup of flooded streets (Hey, who’s afraid of a little water?).

... contd.