There have been way too many complaints about how our city is crumbling, which has started to annoy me. Yes, it's crumbling. Everything built by the British has been repainted and destroyed by people who can't tell a Vada Pav from a Van Gogh, our roads have more potholes than bitumen, and the collapse of another bridge a few weeks ago did take some lives. And yet, does it really matter? As a former Home Minister so eloquently put it a few years ago, these are small things that happen in all big cities. Should we really complain about infrastructure when there are more important things to focus on?

The problem lies in how we, as common taxpaying citizens, think. We assume everyone cares about us because we are taught to believe that all Indians are our brothers and sisters. We assume human beings are important because our religious texts tell us to respect life in all its forms. We believe we deserve better roads, more public toilets, more security for our children, larger green spaces and decent public hospitals just because we hand over part of our salaries every month without complaining. What we fail to do, unfortunately, is think as our politicians do.