A million dollar question asked a number of times - 'How do Mumbaities stay hale and hearty for many years?' The answer is, I see poor street children playing on the roadside, they have no clothes to wear, no water to bathe, no food to eat, they scrounge the dustbins for morsels of food, they do not know what is hygiene or health.

According to doctors, such an existence leads to disease and death yet these children are quite hale and hearty laughing and playing, unlike some sick children of the affluent classes who need constant medical care. The street child's robustness certainly has physical and psychological aspect to it. I guess that constant exposure to that infection and germs acts just like a vaccination. The same principle works for the Mumbaities.

A good number of us eat from roadside vendors, regardless of the dirty contaminated conditions in which the food is prepared. As I said before, there is a physical psychological (psychosomatic if you like) angle to it, the Mumbailite just doesn't have the time to fall sick. How can sickness catch up with him if he just doesn't have the time or the inclination to be sick? He is too busy, too occupied, to be sick! Moreover a majority of Mumbailites are of - modest means. They cannot indulge - as rich people do - in five-star food or the luxury of air-conditioned car travel or a taste for the bottle which is a sure-fire recipe for bad health. The secret of good health of the greater part of Mumbai's population is; they live frugally on simple nutritious food and are physically active (not to mention the rubdown they get twice a day in the packed trains).

But a few decisive steps will go a long way in making our lives clean and healthy. First and foremost, slum rehabilitation by the government which have to involve big projects scheme which is on the card and let’s hope it will succeed in the coming months.