Half-an-hour had passed. Lady Flora was soaking in the insightful letters--some were handwritten while others were neatly typed out. “This lady has lambasted civic authorities for permanently dug-up roads in her locality. Imagine, the poor thing lost her balance and her foot was in a cast for weeks, while another citizen wrote about the lack of footpaths in the city,” she trailed on.

“You know, my Lady, with the upcoming polls, this is a great chance for us, citizens, to be heard loud and clear. I propose that it becomes mandatory to have sessions in every neighbourhood within every ward where citizens get to interact with their candidates. This happens in some places before every election—be it general, state or at the BMC level—but it’s not enough. An all-encompassing effort is important to drive home the point of a better city,” Sir PM suggested. Lady Flora was all ears, and to add momentum to their thoughts, good Dr Viegas, who had returned from a musical evening at the NCPA, joined in the discussion. He gave Sir PM’s idea a double thumbs up. “Pheroze, this is pure genius. And I propose that we call that day, Citizens’ Day. If you read the papers, you will come across World Earth Day—which happens to be today, or World Book Day, so on and so forth. Why not have a day that’s purely dedicated to the cause of the citizens?” Dr Viegas remarked. Lady Flora was delighted, “Bravo Viegas! I can already imagine people signing up to be a part of this collective effort. They must be given the freedom to openly voice their concerns, share their grievances with these candidates, and see for themselves, who will be willing to put their necks on the line to improve their respective constituencies. And yes, depending on who gets voted in, the big A—Accountability—will automatically come into play. That will be Part 2 of this effort to empower the citizens, and insure the city.” Both gents applauded Lady Flora’s utterances.

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The trio had wrapped up reading the notes from the suggestion box. “I will prepare a charter based on these issues, and propose the grand plan to have Citizens’ Day in every ward. I am hopeful about their enthusiasm in taking this to its logical conclusion. Delhi’s pollution, Chennai’s flooding and Bengaluru’s water crisis; naturally, I am worried about our city,” Sir PM’s concern was palpable. “Why should it reach that stage? We must learn lessons from those cities and push for quick, effective solutions,” suggested Dr Viegas. “I agree. You should have been in politics,” chuckled Sir PM, adding, “The powers that be—politicians or administrators —must work together, irrespective of which party they belong to.” As always Lady Flora had the closing line:  “This is our time—the citizen’s time to speak up for their city, and for the leaders to listen to us, for once”.

mid-day’s Features Editor Fiona Fernandez relishes the city’s sights, sounds, smells and stones...wherever the ink and the inclination takes her. She tweets @bombayana
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