It has been raining right since Sunday morning, and it has been pouring all through Sunday night to Monday morning.

Can still hear the thunder and rain outside as I get ready for work.

While I have to go to work, I’m well aware that most of the roads in Mumbai and Navi Mumbai are going to be flooded. Travelling is going to be a nightmare.

I’m just hoping for the good of Mumbai, we don’t face another 26th July.

And my report continues. Not much development in the manholes. It hasn’t gotten worse from yesterday nor has it gotten better.

Manhole 1 – Day 11

Manhole 3 – Day 09

Additionally the road situation on the junction has just worsened.
Horrible traffic, bad roads, this is Mumbai!

Missed day 09 because I was late for the bus and wasn’t able to snap a pic. However, didn’t miss that much, as Day 10 wasn’t a disappointment at all.

Manhole 1 has broken still further. There is nothing left of it.

Manhole 3 has worsened still further thanks to road work just adjacent to it. What surprises me is that there was no work being done on Monday and yesterday (Tuesday) morning, the road was all dug up :O Do they work fast or what!
Pics below for you to see.

Do you folks also have similar scenes in your neighbourhood? Tell me about it.

This is the follow up post from Manholes – Day 03. As I said, I wasn’t able to take pictures of days 04 to 07. However, the BMC hasn’t disappointed me.
When I arrived at my stop today, both the manholes in a worse state since that day.

Here’s Manhole 01 on the eight day:

And Manhole 03 on it’s sixth day:

As you can see this has broken down still further. One of the two covers has gone missing and there is water all around the manhole.
What’s worse about this manhole is that it is exactly at a right turn, which makes it difficult for vehicles to maneuver around it.

I don’t see both these manholes getting repaired in the near future, so I now have one post per day

Had to attend my Grandma’s birthday party last evening and since my bike was giving problems I decided to use public transport to get back home from work.

Left my workplace a little after 3.30pm and hitched a ride with a colleague heading towards Thane. His plans changed and I had to get off at Rabale and find a bus or auto heading towards Airoli.

For those who aren’t aware, the transport in Navi Mumbai SUCKS!

After a good deal of waiting I a 513 arrived and I jumped in as it heads towards Mulund.

Instead of getting off at Airoli, which I am familiar with I went upto Mulund (E). My first mistake.

Climbed over the correct bridge at Mulund to get to the West and started off in the wrong direction. Asked a traffic cop who pointed me towards the bus stops. Reached there, searched and asked and found the correct stop.

Got into a 398 and asked the conductor for Chakala and he told me it goes only to Marol and asked me to get off. Second mistake!

Got off at the next stop only to be caught by the ticket collector (TC). Argued a great deal with the TC in Hindi. But I was getting late and will admit that for the TC, I was in the wrong. I finally payed off the small fine (The image to the right).
For those who don’t understand Marathi, it says that I had to pay a fine for travelling ticketless.

I still maintain that it the conductor is largely to blame. And I am pissed off not being clear before boarding the bus and also for getting off, because incidently the 398 did go to where I wanted to! X(

Got the TC to tell me the correct bus no. and bus-stop and I finally found the one. It was already past 5.30pm.

The bus journey took me more than an hour and I reached home a little before seven.

Got ready in a hurry and left for the party, strongly vowing to not travel by public transport again, unless I have no option!

Following up on my post, we enter the third day.

The condition of Manhole 01 hasn’t changed much since yesterday, but neither has it been repaired.

And I found another manhole nearby in a much worse state!

I won’t be able to get feedback for Day 03 to Day 07, because of a two day training programme I have to attend, plus the weekend.

Hopefully, the manholes would be repaired by Monday.

This is a follow up of my yesterday’s post and developments on the same.

The first manhole has broken still further, while the second has been repaired. I wonder why they didn’t repair both :-S

Will keep you updated on the status of the first…

The place where I catch my bus every morning near J.B. Nagar has two manholes.

A few months back one of the manholes broke a bit and within the next two days it had crumbled completely. Instead of it being repaired I found stones around the manhole. It did get repaired finally.

I missed photographs then, but this time the story repeats. Found both manholes have developed small holes and this time took the needed pictures.

Here is the first (the one which broke last time):

Click the thumb to view the full pic.

And this is the second:

If you look closely at the picture, there is one glaring stupid mistake. Rather easy to spot, so can you tell me what it is?

Mom just subscribed to the Hindustan Times Corporate Offer @ 250.

You get an annual subscription of Hindustan Times for only Rs. 250/- plus a Tupperware kit (good one, I personally checked this out )

I don’t know how good the newspaper is. Reading the Economic Times consumes a good amount of my travelling time, so I don’t think I will get much chance reading yet another newspaper!

On a lighter note, selling the newspaper you collect over the year as raddii (scrap) will give you approximately Rs. 300, which means you get to read the paper and also make a profit out of it! :O
Now, where can you find an offer like that?

To subscribe to the Hindustan Times, call the HT Smartline at 56265755, 56265774, 56265776, 56265787 between 10am and 8pm.

Note: I am not affiliated in any way to Hindustan Times. This post is because the offer is a great deal and I have subscribed to it myself.

Firstly my apologies to dog lovers. Am just using the phrase.

Ever since Hutch took over Orange in Mumbai, the future doesn’t seem so bright anymore!

Besides getting rather erratic signal, I’ve experienced loads of cross connection problems. And this hasn’t happened to just me!

What is even more surprising is that a full signal drops several units the moment I answer a call!

Technology usually gets better with time. Here we are actually seeing a drop in performance!

I’ve been using Hutch for over five years now and this number for two, and so am a little reluctant to shift
But, if I have to, I will!

Let me know your experiences with Hutch. I don’t think we can do much about it, but maybe some bad publicity may wake them up?