Trust me, this isn't intentional. It is just coincidence that I end up posting updates to this blog on a Monday.
Rains continue to lash down the capital city, with almost the entire weekend being wet. The fearful have stayed indoors, but the faithful have found a new tourist attraction - River Yamuna.
As mentioned in a previous post, Yamuna resembles a dirty stream at most times. Over the years, it has been steadily giving way - with humans moving in with their houses, livestock and crops.
This is prime real-estate and if the occupier is willing to reconcile with the risk of flooding, he/she may end up owning a piece of fertile land.
The increasing temperatures of the past decades have shrunk the river and dissipated the risk of flood dramatically. And if all you had was a few bits of personal belonging, this place offered a chance to set up home.
Or a luxury home - with modern kitchens, furniture, shared swimming and gymnasium - if you had some cash to splash. Which is what the CWG Organising Committee thought, when it planned the Games Village. This block of flats would be worth its weight in gold after a fortnight of playing host to the athletes.
River Yamuna is having a laugh now. Record rains have forced neighbouring states to let water flow on to the national capital - allowing it to claim back the land that always belonged to it. The risk isn't distant any more.
On Sunday evening, the water level stood at 206.35 metres - nearly 1.5 metres above the danger mark. The last time Yamuna caused havoc in the city was in 1978, flooding the capital's northern and eastern districts.
While those with few personal belongings have moved upwards to safe areas, the Games Village resembles an island, surrounded by water. The rains haven't decided to move away yet, but Delhi's residents are coming in hordes to see the river in its full glory.
On most bridges across Yamuna, you can spot stationary cars, motorbikes and buses - as their owners line the edges of the bridges. It almost feels like the floods are a bigger spectator sport than anything that the CWG Organising Committee will be able to conjure up.
This is welcome relief for TV news channels too. Floods in Pakistan were a bit too distant to connect with, but floods in Delhi make wonderful televisual experience. Egged on by creative producers and news directors, young reporters have waded as deep into the river as would be safe.
Of course, it isn't an attempt at sensational or anything. Just an attempt to reflect the "concern ordinary people feel at being swept away by the might of Yamuna".
Ordinary people, meanwhile, watch bemused from the safety of over-bridges!!
Driving across the river yesterday, for my niece's birthday, and driving back - after tea/snacks at a friend's place - I didn't feel the car would suddenly turn into an amphibious vehicle. Those collecting toll at one of the expressways also didn't betray a concern at being swept away.
It was almost 10 in the night, but the tourists were still around. Their cars and bikes parked along the expressway.
Surely, this unpredictable flow of nature is far more exciting than the predictable corruption and failure involved in organising the Commonwealth Games.
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