Tag Archives: bad roads

Selfie, Pouts & Potholes

Hey babes, did ya chck thz meme out?

selfiemoon1

 

So fny, ain’t it totally rockin’? So ‘Us’ na! Mah bae sent it to moi. Am toh totally rofling ovr it since morn.

Now, tell me you haven’t heard somebody around you do this?! Don’t lie haan dear. 😉

Woh chhodo chalo, look at this:

selfiewithdeal selfiewithmodi selfiewithtruck

 

Ok..fine…ye thoda zyada ho gaya…a little ‘too wack’. Chalo, we don’t do these kinds, but we can’t deny that we do click a ridiculous number of selfies each day. Sitting-idle-at-home selfie, Driving selfie, Hanging-out-in-a-mall selfie, chilling-with-ma-bestie selfie etc etc….

We wonder, if we can take selfies at an avg rate of 20 selfies per minute (ok..fine …that’s made up), why can’t we click a single picture per day of an issue around us. These issues are practically everywhere around us. No need to scout for them.

Imagine each one of us clicking a picture each day and uploading it on www.ChangeBhai.in or atleast tagging ChangeBhai on social media, how much difference would that make collectively. Accha, selfie hi leni hai? Thik hai bhai, selfie le lo issue ke saath. Pothole selfie, overflowing garbage dump selfie, bad traffic signal selfie. In fact, somebody had launched this initiative in Bangalore, #selifi withpothole after PM Modi launched #selfiewithdaughter. The citizens were told to take a selfie with a pothole and mark the BBMP on social media.

Courtesy: Bangalore Mirror
Courtesy: Bangalore Mirror

Of course, nothing happened because who will take the issue up? But, in this case, there is ChangeBhai to take up your case!

Socho. Kaam toh aayengi tumhari selfiyan.

So here’s a call to all the baes and boos, babes and loves, darlings and dudes, Pls click atleast one picture of an issue around you each day and report it on www.ChangeBhai.in. Ye hoga sahi ka ‘cool stuff ’, kya bolte?!

 

Potholes in the sky?! Yes. Yes. Yes. Possible. Eee dekho tanik.

Holy moly guacamole!! If you thought the title of this post was misleading, then you my friend, are so wrong. Mumbai has never and will never cease to surprise us. Check this snapshot from a CB user on twitter below:

1

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Source: ChangeBhai Twitter Account

What the eff is happening, eh, The B the M the C?! Roads ka chalo jabardasti samjhe hum ki tum bole traffic bahut hai n all that. But son! potholes on the skywalk!

If you remember our blog about the ChangeBhai issue# A0431 ‘Lights not functional on Skywalk ‘ from Mumbai, you would remember this location. *drum rolls* The great (greater than Akbar, the great) Andheri Skywalk. The phatichar-est skywalk to have ever graced this city.

Pehle iska light nahi jal raha tha because the meter approval was pending. That we got fixed.

Phir paani was tapkoo-ing from its roof. That somehow got fixed temporarily with some jugaad.

Phir vaapis lights stopped working. Ye chal kya raha hai bhai?

Then these potholes plus hawker menace & a leaking roof again.

(BHAGOOOOO …….BHOOOOOOTTTT! Kidding….but ho sakta hai. We have shakk.)

Accha, doosri baat..Google Andheri Skywalk and you will see such fancy pictures of it, you will be amazed. Aisa to yeh, suna hai, launch pe bhi nahi dikh raha tha . Check out these amazeballs pictures:

Source: photobucket
Image Courtesy: photobucket
Image Courtesy: bollywoodscout.com
Image Courtesy: bollywoodscout.com

If you want more fun in your life (duh!), then keep watching this space. We are thinking of making a mainstream movie on this issue. Andheri Skywalk ki Madhur Kahaniyan.

Anyway, bahut ho gaya rona. We will get this resolved, that’s for sure. And if you spot a similar issue around you, do report it on www.ChangeBhai.in.

Tata. Byebye.

 

Ek Tha (ne) Lion.

No, we are not referring to a potential sequel to the Salman Khan starrer movie Ek Tha Tiger. :)

If you remember,  there was this widely circulated video of a lion roaming on the roads of Thane around two months ago. Going by the number of bad road related issues being uploaded from Thane, we can only guess why the lion was roaming around Thane like it was on a vacation. Looking at the roads of Thane, it probably thought it was in his jungle and not in a city. lol.

Actual snapshot from the viral video
Actual snapshot from the viral video

Btw, thank you Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC) for resolving issue#A0551 ‘Road in Bad Shape’ in record time for the first time ever. 15 days! Not bad considering your historical data. That too without bugging us for issue pictures from different angles & directions like these roads are in a remote Chambal valley village and not in your own city. Hmmm… think we will need drones to send the kind of pictures these municipal corporations sometimes ask for. Absurd.

So, ya, thank you TMC. You saved us some major energy and time as the user had never uploaded an image. Bach gaye!

@ChangeBhai users: Pls try and upload an image against your issue. Makes our job much easier.

Also, a shout out to the user sagarkanade for intimating us of the issue resolution as and when it was resolved by the authorities. We really appreciate active participation by the ChangeBhai users post uploading the issue.

Encouraging and timely mesgs from users such as sagarkanade (his comment under the issue copied below) keep us going. Really.

Sagarkanade            26 Feb 2015

———

Hi Team Changebhai,

The road problem seems to be solved . It has been re-layed with additional tar.The only concern that remains is the haphazard way rickshaw drivers stop in the middle of the road for passengers to get in.

But I would like to thank you for reporting the issue and also thanks the authorities who acted on this and got this resolved.

Thanks a ton and keep up the good work.

———

Also, a big thank you to users like Shobhana Anil who have been patiently updating us regarding their issues via Facebook.

We request all our users to keep bugging us regarding the status of your issues. Doesn’t really matter if you issue is pending or gets resolved. We will ensure we pull up our socks and get to work on your issue if it has been pending from our side.

And ya, keep uploading new issues on www.ChangeBhai.in.

What exactly does ChangeBhai do?

Hi Changemakers!

It gives us super duper immense pleasure to say that a lot of active citizens are using ChangeBhai to upload issues of their neighborhood. A lot of these users are from Mumbai (though we handle issues from all over India : metros, tier-1 & tier-2 cities. Buck up rest of India. Get your issues resolved. Give it a shot at least, we say :)).

PicMonkey Collage

Just wanted to share a few things about how we do what we do.

Firstly, a short note about us. We are a young team of active citizens who have launched this initiative to ‘assist’ the citizens in getting their issues resolved & are not liable to resolve any issues.

Unlike a lot of portals which tell the user to sign petitions or just upload an issue and spread the word around amongst their social media friends to create a buzz around it, we just do this one thing.

GET YOUR ISSUE FIXED. Period.

Ok, now…

Who should not upload issues on ChangeBhai?:

  1. If you have that keeda inside you to prove that ‘everyone and everything else around you wrong’
  2. If you have always nurtured an ambition to migrate to a phoren land just because you think ‘things can never change in India’
  3. If a careful and deep analysis of your social media posts shows that more than 70% of your posts fall under the category of ‘cribby’ or ‘deprecatory’
  4. If the first instinct you have when you come across somebody trying to change things around them is something like this, instead of trying it at least once.

                        Kya faltu velle hai ye.

                        Kuch nahi hoga inse

                       Main isse acchi website bana sakta(i) hoon*

What all to expect when you upload issues on ChangeBhai

    a. Each and every issue uploaded correctly will be put into process and forwarded to the authority no matter how important or minor it is.
    b. We always share the name and the number (mostly mobile) of the staff member with whom we are coordinating to get the issue resolved. In many cases, even the ward office address where he/she sits. You are free to call them too, if you want.
    c. No matter what, you will always get regular updates from us. You will always know at whose end (authority and employee name) the issue is stuck.
    d. First non-automatic email that goes to you will ask you to confirm the location and ask for landmarks. Do respond to that. This is being done because many a times we and the authorities have gone round and round because the map tagging was done inaccurately by the user. This affects our credibility in front of the authorities, so we are just being sure.
    e. In cases where there is a location confusion or the issue is of recurring nature, we give the ground staff’s contact to the user as that works better than going ‘to-and-fro’ between the user and the authority. You will agree that our collective aim should be to get the issue resolved and not get stuck in process formalities.
    f. You will be given a ‘Resolution Tip’ in rare cases where the issue is recurring in nature on what exactly to do and whom to contact to report the issue in the future.

The whole concept is to ‘work together’ and get these issues resolved. We get you the right contacts, we escalate wherever the issue gets stuck etc. Of course, we cannot get all the issues resolved, but we put each and every issue into process and make repeated contact for follow up. To give you a figure, roughly around 20% of the issues get stuck for more than a month.

IMP Note for the Procrastinators : In cases where our operation team has already sent 2 follow up emails for pending information or issue closure confirmation, the issue will be tagged as Fixed/Closed on the 7th day of receiving no information from your side. You may however choose to reopen the issue by sending us an email on now_or_abhi@changebhai.in.

Our process might not be perfect but we are improving with each passing day based on citizens’ feedback and our experiences with the authorities. Knowing how we work and the limitations of working with authorities, do give us constructive inputs. We would love to incorporate them wherever possible. But first: Upload 1 issue on www.ChangeBhai.in at least.

And do pass the word around to encourage others to upload issues if you agree that ‘getting ChangeBhai to bug the authorities with repeated follow ups‘ is better than doing ‘nothing at all’.

Happy change making!

* If you think so, email your web development portfolio to now_or_abhi@changebhai.in. We are looking for php & app developers.

 

Zzzzzzzz. This is all I do when it rains. And You?

Heylo ChangeMakers!

Am sure you saw our video Rains, Love, Chai, Pakodas …And?, which was launched last week. No, you haven’t? Click here to watch it.

Dunno about you of course but I could so relate to the paper boats and the frogs bit in the rains. As kids, we used to go crazy with these thingies when it rained. Some solid timepass!

But, know what..what I didn’t see/hear people referring to in the video and what I totally do in rains nowadays is this one thing:

Sleep my ass off till it hurts. :)

Comment below if you agree with this.

sleep

Neways..

Wo kya bolte hain..Watch the first drop of rain fall, feel the breeze, stop by, notice the smiles, smell the roses. Sorry, ye thoda zyada ho gya cuz all of us know what it smells like when we walk on the roads in rains. 😐

The video rekindled many fond memories but know, what the sad bit is, it’s just not the same anymore. The rains just doesn’t bring that cheer it used in the earlier days. The mess , the bad roads & the traffic just screw up the whole ‘rain’ experience, which by the way, you can report on www.ChangeBhai.in.

Check User Issues# A0481 “Pathetic roads” & A0516 “Drainage” & do report similar rain related problems in your area. And, if you have no issue to upload then do share the post to spread the word.

Issue#481, "Pathetic Roads"
Issue#481, “Pathetic Roads”
Issue#516 "drainage"
Issue#516 “drainage”

How to Give Ganpati Bappa the Best Welcome This Year?

Ganpati Bappa Morya, Pudchya Varshi Laukar Yaa!

(Translation: Glory to the Lord Ganpati! Come again soon next year)

We invite Lord Ganpati to come back to visit us year after year, but shouldn’t we ensure his trip is comfortable and worth it. :)

By the way, the Ganpati Mandals in Mumbai mean serious business this time and to ensure our beloved ‘Bappa’ has a smooth ride on the Visarjan day (September 18), they have given a list of 2113 potholes and a deadline of September 16 to their municipal corporation to fix them. They say if they fail to do so, then all the mandals will use their reserve funds and carry out pothole-repair work. Wah! What spirit!

Image Courtesy: Rediff
Image Courtesy: Rediff

This was about a case of ‘good spirit’. A case study from ChangeBhai’s issue database about ‘not-so-good intent’ below:

Check out these issues uploaded by two ChangeBhai users:

Issue# A0429 ‘Huge Pothole outside SaiPalaceHotel’

Before
Before
After
After

Issue# A0418 ‘new potholes on recently made road’

Before

Before

 We are awaiting post resolution image of issue# A0418 from the user

In both the cases, the roads were newly made and had developed potholes shortly after they were repaired. Of course, we got the potholes repaired but the question is ‘How long will they last?’ Having worked with them closely, we can see that BMC is trying to do what they can at the moment, but the backlog of repairs and resource constraint are two issues which make the problem bigger and bigger with each passing day. Koi Sujhaav?

And ya, tab tak,koshish jaari rakhte hain . Do upload similar issues on www.ChangeBhai.in to ensure Bappa’s trip is totally worth it, this time. :) Ganpati Bappa Morya!!

Time Travel, Anyone?

Ladies and Gentlemen. Boys and Girls. This is what we call ‘going BACK in time’. Literally.  Just look at this picture and tell me if I am wrong.

comparison

Call this a sad case of irony or whatever, but the truth is, that despite the fantastic economic growth, India is doing really bad in urban governance. For more than a decade, India has enjoyed unprecedented growth that in many ways is comparable to that of The United States of America years ago. However, the same cannot be said of our infrastructure.

Come on India, we know you can do better. :) Report some of these issues to the authorities through ChangeBhai and help India move forward.