After completing a highly successful 26 weeks during which National Geographic Channel's (NGC) VP marketing Rajesh Seshadhri claims to have beaten Discovery in the TRP ratings in 18-20 of those weeks, NGC yesterday (29 January 2006) kicked off a new series - Megacities.

The first episode had a local flavour in that India's financial capital Mumbai was featured. The other peer cities in the series include the only another Asian city - Hong Kong -, two European cities - London and Paris-, three cities from North America - Uncle Sam's (or Sham's) good ole New York and the gamblers delight Las Vegas, Mexico's Mexico city, and last but not the least Brazil's Sao Paulo.

The criteria for picking each city is - It must have a population of at least 10 million, there must be a predominant feature in the city - the city must depend heavily on that feature and it must have good infrastructure, or as in the case of Mumbai great plans for improving the infrastructure. Hence there is no city from Africa or Australia and Tokyo or Shanghai are conspicuous by their absence.

The Mumbai episode highlighted the importance of the city's 150-year-old railway network, which carries more passengers per kilometer than any other railway on earth tallying up to a mind-numbing 6 million commuters a day and still having one of the best safety records. The serial meanders through this lifeline of Mumbai, touches the dabbhawalla who have awarded Six Sigma - the highest rating by Forbes magazine - the humble dabbhawallas' peers are General Electric and Motorola. Six sigma signifies less than one error in a million transactions. These are just some of the interesting facts brought to light in the Mumbai episode.

However, since the Mumbai episode was shot sometime early last year, the deluge that submerged the city on 26 July 2005 was absent. Also conspicous by its absence was the daily job commute done by lakhs of people between Mumbai and Pune, Mumbai and Nasik and Mumbai and Vashi. At times this can be an awful experience and is a clear sign of the city's infrastructure being stretched to the limit.

The extremities of the city were not mentioned - though Navi Mumbai did get decent exposure on the show. Missing were mentions of Kasara or Karjat (technically in Thane district) or the last station on the Western line (Virar). The narrator was not clear whether the total track length is 300 kms or the route length is 300 kms. If it is the former, then this would be a blunder.

Despite all this, the episode on Mumbai was definitely worth watching because it opens the viewers' eyes to so many facets about this amazing megapolis that have been taken for granted.

Not surprisingly, Seshadhri exudes confidence that the series will do well.

Also Read:
Mumbai is on NGC's 'Megacities' next year