Lindsay Pereira: When riot police guard a bridge...

State Reserve Police Force personnel were deployed earlier this week in Vasai There was no riot obviously because as the state of Gujarat has taught us itrsquos rare to spot the police when there actually is a riot in progress No these wellequipped armed gentlemen were deployed to protect a bridge from people who live in the vicinity They were there to prevent people from foolishly attempting to make use of the bridge in order to get from Vasai East to Vasai WestNearly a week after the riot police were called in to stop people from using the Vasai bridge it will finally be inaugurated this morningThere is nothing wrong with the bridge of course which is not to say itrsquos a perfect bridge because it was built by the MMRDA an organisation that has never built anything perfectly since the day of its formation The bridge took approximately seven years to build six of which were presumably spent moving its file from one office to another More interestingly the decision to commission a new bridge was made over a period of four decades Locals using the old bridge for all those years simply didnrsquot have a choice Itrsquos not as if letters to politicians would lead to any real development or anything would itAs for the SRPF it is usually called out for disaster management operations the security of vital installations or to fight whoever the government currently believes is a Naxalite This time it was called because a few locals understandably frustrated after a 7year wait decided to throw open the bridge without waiting for a politician to inaugurate itNo sane person I know has ever been able to figure out why a politician needs to inaugurate anything I understand one of them inaugurating a public toilet or something because there is a natural affinity between toilets and politics but I fail to understand why they need to throw open things they have had absolutely nothing to do withMedia reports suggest the MMRDA was waiting for the Chief Minister of Maharashtra to inaugurate the bridge which is bizarre because he wasnrsquot the Chief Minister when the bridge was commissioned He wasnrsquot even living in our city The foundation stone of the bridge must have been laid with another inauguration at the hands of another politician who again must have had nothing to do with coming up with the idea of the bridge And yet the MMRDA like the BMC and every other organisation filled with servile folk who bend over backwards to make a politician look good felt that a 7year wait could be extended by a few days simply because they wanted to give a minister another photo opportunityAnd so naturally the locals did what we should all do They began using the bridge MMRDA officials were understandably appalled because a project isnrsquot really complete unless a politician says itrsquos complete and pats himself on the back for something he had nothing to do with So 24 hours after the bridge was used it was shut down again until workers of a number of political parties appeared each trying to lsquoinauguratersquo it for their own political benefit An MNS worker told this paper that if the bridge wasnrsquot opened soon they would open it in lsquoMNS stylersquo No one has informed our political parties that hooliganism is not a lsquostylersquo but thatrsquos another story Eventually the SRPF were calledThe bridge will supposedly be inaugurated today presumably after some minister takes time out from his busy schedule involving other inaugurations to throw this one open It will then deteriorate after a few monsoons on account of the shoddy work that is the hallmark of every MMRDA undertaking Eventually a decade from now a politician will think of commissioning another bridge to replace this one leading to more photo opportunities pointless delays and a new bridge five decades later The locals who threw open the current bridge will have passed on by then leaving their children and grandchildren to struggle from Vasai East to West as their parents did The only positive thing about how this story ends is the fact that no one will remember any of the politicians who cut those ribbons over the bridgersquos long and pointless historyMaybe politicians shouldnrsquot just inaugurate bridges and roads We should invite them to inaugurate our homes too before we move in Invite them to inaugurate offices and cars before we start using them Invite them to inaugurate our new electronic appliances before we switch them on Itrsquos not as if they have anything important to doWhen he isnrsquot ranting about all things Mumbai Lindsay Pereira can be almost sweet He tweets lindsaypereira Send your feedback to mailbagmiddaycom