The 73-year-old mother of a friend recently told me that she no longer steps out every evening the way she has for much of her life. This may be unimportant for most people, but it isn’t for senior citizens. She lives in the suburbs and has long grown accustomed to the idea of short walks to buy groceries, chat with neighbours, or stroll around the neighbourhood because that used to be a normal thing to do until recently. It is how I remember growing up too, back when the notion of hopping onto a bicycle and riding up to meet friends wouldn’t sound like a stupid idea. Now, the thought is unimaginable, for parents as well as children. That city of my childhood has long ceased to exist, and teenagers on bicycles are as rare as Prime Ministers with real degrees.

My friend’s mother says that she stays home these days because the streets outside and around her locality have been dug up for much of the past year. She doesn’t feel safe and worries about falling because that is how dangerous it is. No one knows why the craters outside every building exist, when things will return to normal, or if they ever will. Months of questions from residents have resulted in press releases about the imminent completion of work, but no one familiar with how the BMC operates is confident that this will last beyond a couple of months. Ask anyone who lives in Bandra, for instance, and they will speak of roads paved in October and torn apart by the following March.