Desiderata, far beyond reach

I was born in Kolkata, but I was brought over to Durgapur when I was less than two years old. Since then, barring the eight years in Kolkata after school, I have spent all my life in this town. Maybe this is where I shall spend the rest of my life, too. So I guess I can now call myself an old-timer here, most of my seniors having already passed away or reached senility. I sometimes wish it were a nicer place to live in. Here are a few improvements I'd have liked to see in my town:

Footpaths along all major thoroughfares.

Much sterner policing of traffic. 

Good, reliable, reasonably priced public transport round the clock.

Several more fully equipped hospitals, both public and private, competing to provide the best possible service. Also hospices and at-home nursing services for the old and permanently ill.

Many more parks scattered around the town, and shady trees along every road, Delhi style.

Much stricter curbs on noise pollution, whether it is being caused by weddings, fairs, pujas or just plain drunken revelry.

A municipality and police force which actually listen to and act promptly and effectively in response to public complaints and demands (at present that's a joke. I have tried, and not once, to provide feedback on their websites, and been silently ignored).

Twice daily flights to all major cities around the country from the new airport.

Civilized and informed people between 20 and 70 with real interests, with whom you can have conversations beyond shopping and children's exam scores or salaries and the latest cars and phones, and whose social attitudes have evolved beyond the 1950s.

Good job opportunities aplenty, which would encourage well-educated as well as talented people to come back and settle here: and I am not talking about doctors and engineers. I'd have liked to see many artists and writers and sportspersons and competent, idealistic teachers, too.

I know, it goes without saying, that I am destined to die dissatisfied. Who knows but Durgapur will have become another overgrown shanty town or ghost town by the time I die. Thank God Dr. Bidhan Roy didn't live long enough to see which way his dream new town had gone...

Vivekananda's birthday again. Mercifully he is long dead, too. How far away his work and his vision seem now, how remote and irrelevant! He had wanted India to eradicate poverty and ignorance and modernize materially without losing her soul, her great spiritual riches ... do these things even mean anything to millennial Indians any more?