Conversation 1: An elderly gentleman, active in his gated complex, exulted on everyone’s favourite platform-for-all-purposes.

“Have you all seen the road outside our complex?” he asked excitedly of the nearly 100 members and proceeded to explain that the hawkers who had occupied the pavement, their customers spilling on to the road, were all cleared, their stalls demolished and handcarts taken away, and the road was good to walk or park cars.

Not surprisingly, many applauded the demolition that the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation had carried out.

Encroachments viewed differently

The said gentleman, of course, had less to say about the encroachment on another pavement nearby.

This was a set of mini-gardens randomly made by a corporate house outside its massive complex, presumably to prevent hawkers from occupying it.

The hawkers were encroachers; the corporation installing mini-gardens was not seen as such.

The hidden cost of demolitions

Conversation 2: As the May morning wore on, making Mumbai’s heat harsher, the autorickshaw driver who was taking me across seven kilometres for an appointment sighed.

He was a familiar fellow, having driven me across Mumbai for many years.

I knew he was alone in the city, sharing a room with three other men, two of whom also drove autos for a living, and went to his village in Jaunpur, Uttar Pradesh, for about a month every year.

“There’s no affordable and clean food in our area anymore. I have to search for places to have lunch,” he explained with a sigh.

One of the stalls that had been cleared near the gated complex was where he regularly ate.

It served........

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