Monsoon - The blog

It is that part of the year when one is feed up with the burning summer and desperately want some rain so that it not only bring the mercury down but also make the surrounding bit greener.
Those who are Hyderabad will probably agree that this is one of the hottest summers we had this year with temperature reaming above 40 degree for most part of April and May. Coming from a coastal belt, i was quite acquainted not only with the heat but also the humidity that comes with every summer. But since last 8 years i am out of my lovely little city Cuttack and moved from one place to other. I have seen the scorching summer of Delhi and also the humid summer of Chennai. Even my favorite city Bangalore was hotter in 2006 when left it to pursue my new job in Hyderabad.
Last month i was desperately following the news from the metrological department of India on the arrival of monsoon. It was really refreshing when i got the first information on early arrival of monsoon and it could hit AP as early as 1st week of June. It is now end of 2nd week of June and only decent rain we had is last Sunday for over an hour. To have a good cool climate on a Sunday evening is as good as it gets and if it is a first rain of the season it make you happier. I tried my best to get wet in the rain by doing things that i could have otherwise avoided or wait until the rain stop which was anyway not a huge one.
Seeing the good cool climate that evening i change my plan and decided to cook something at home instead of getting outside food. But before i could decide on the menu the inevitable strikes and the power went off, beautiful song 'sawan barshe tarse dil...' on you tube comes to a halt as i start searching for a candle. Thousand ugly thought cross my head and i was cursing all and everyone but all in vain cause this is not new. Yes, not new because this thing happen every year and it is more 30 yrs i have been born and i have moved across so many big cities but everywhere the problem remain the same year after year.
It's not that we didn't had power cut before, starting from March there was a scheduled power cut of 2 hours which then changed to an unscheduled cut of god knows how many hours but why the hell is that whenever the rain start, the power has to go. It make sense if the there a strong wind going but when there is only a moderate rainfall why in the hell one would think of a power cut.
So with no power i had to drop my dinner plan preparing at home, it was almost an hour and i was convinced that the power is not going to come unless the rain stops. I decided to go out and get something for dinner as i can hear the rain slowing down. I came out of my room and there was another obvious thing waiting for me, what the hell how can i forget this, the entire street was flooded with water. I mean street is quite good and there seems to be proper drainage system until now and with this one rain everything seems so useless. This is not very surprising as ever year in every big city whenever there is a rain the traffic comes to halt.
By the time i return to home having my dinner the current was back and little river created outside my gate seems to draining down the gutter. I switched on my laptop to watch a Guru Dutta’s 'Kagaz ke phool' as decided but couldn't enjoy the movie fully as these 2 basic question kept me haunting.
Why is it so in every big city we have this problem and it seems these things are now taken for granted whenever there is a rain the power has to go and we have to swim our way through the newly created river to get out. Everybody says India is shinning, growing and what not...quite right though but still people living in cities are deprived of these basic necessities. People who are paying their tax properly in addition to whatever water/electricity bill they are using (even not using….) and doing whatever they can within their capacity to help the society grow but there were kept away from this basic facility. It will not be absolute incorrect to say that the government present and past have done little to make life better.
The monsoon is here and it will come every year like it has being doing in the past so can we can not expect a better infrastructure in terms of better drainage system, good power supply if not uninterrupted these are some of the basic things and if we can't do things to improve or make available these basic things to everybody then there is seriously some problem with the entire system. I know these can't be done overnight but then i have seeing these things happening since last 30 years and i don't know if i could see the change in near future........!!!!!