Beautification of Saat Rasta wall springs up a puzzle

The wall is now adorned by images of Mahalaxmi Racecourse and the city’s other iconic places. Pic/Ashish Raje

If you are at Saat Rasta and heading towards Mahalaxmi station, you are likely to find a wall that is being beautified with many images of the racecourse. Incidentally, the same wall had displayed tiles depicting Dhobi Ghat four months ago, though they were cleared in no time. Officials from the local civic ward insisted it had not been done by the BMC.

The area where the wall is being beautified is a part of corporator ward no. 199 that is represented by Mayor Kishori Pednekar.

mid-day had published a photograph of the wall with painted tiles showing the life at Dhobi Ghat in its June 28 edition. Commuters and locals said that the art display was removed in just a few days and the entire wall was whitewashed.

Dattaraj Kabre, who sometimes travels via Saat Rasta, said he had noticed the makeover. "I recently took that route and saw the photos of Mahalaxmi Racecourse on the wall that earlier had images from Dhobi Ghat. I remember seeing them when the tiles were being put, but after a week the wall no longer had any beautification," said Kabre.

BMC officials are clueless about the change of scene on the wall. A senior official from G-south ward said, "There was no work done by the BMC and we do not know who put those up and who removed them. It has been done using the corporator fund and is just a regular beautification work where printed tiles depicting the racecourse are displayed."