In island societies, RWAs matter more than govt

From far away, the Indirapuram skyline looks impressive. Tall, shoulder-to-shoulder residential apartments crowding the horizon, it has the lure of a happening place. But that's from a distance. Wade through the dense Kala Patthar Road traffic, start living here, chances are you won't find the experience as delightful. Indirapuram has an impressive façade, but its innards are rotting.
Years ago, when this sub-city was still on the drawing boards, the planners probably lost their way. Why else did Manhattans mushroom but the sewerage system did not? Why else did they build roads and forget to create parking bays? They built parks (Swarna Jayanti Park is an exception) but didn't think it important to work out a plan to keep them nice and clean.
The Avanti Bai Park is a case in point. It's roomy and has an impressive but uncared for statue. Wonder why nobody feels the need to prune the shrubs, repair the broken brick-and-mortar pathways and fix the broken benches.
Logically, the Kala Pathhar - a blockish black foundation stone a former UP governor laid in another park off NH-24 - ought to be the neighbourhood's corner of pride and esteem. After all, it signalled the township's inauguration. How could this stone stand so forgotten? Why does the park where it stands be such a picture of abandonment? Why doesn't anybody care?
But that's about the public parks. Those who have homes in the numerous housing societies crowding the township thank their stars. These are little republics, have their own governments, services, conservancy facilities. These are islands taxpayers buy space in and pay through their nose for amenities that should have come to them anyway.
Take power. The district of Ghaziabad primarily lives in darkness. Those who live in independent houses rely on inverters. The prosperous install small generator plants on their lawns. But in the housing societies, industrial-scale generators drink endless litres of diesel, belch plumes of black smoke to run lifts, air-conditioners, pump up water to overhead tanks, keep the treadmills going in gyms. Residents pay. True, it blows a massive hole in the pocket. True, those who live here breathe air thick in grime, soot and myriad other pollutants. Still, children get to study in the evenings. They get to sleep at night.
Routinely, tanker trucks lumber into campuses to fill drums with diesel to fuel the generator sets. As hundreds of these machines in one society after another go full blast, they create a deafening noise. Outside these gated communities, there are large patches of darkness. The not-so-moneyed spend stuffy and sweaty evenings by the lantern.
For those who live in the societies, their residents' welfare associations (RWA) matter infinitely more than the local MP or MLA. After all, they get to badger their RWA reps when sweepers fail to clean the lobby or lifts fail to work or the maintenance charges shoot through the roof. The RWA must answer if there aren't enough flowers in the garden, if water's seeping into the basement parking area. The RWAs are governments that run their little republics.
But outside these republics is the real world, where residents freely throw rubbish on the roads and garbage remains uncollected, where motorists set new standards in lawless, mindless driving, where veggie and fruit vendors bite away a bit more of the carriageway every day, where even conservancy workers don't hesitate to sweep garbage into uncovered drains blocking them. The society-wallah really couldn't care less. For, his corner is his little California. The walls that keep him from the staggering mess outside are really tall. He's safe inside. Why should he really care for the big black stone in that lonely park off NH-24.