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.
Showing posts with label flooding. Show all posts
Showing posts with label flooding. Show all posts
13 September 2010
13 July 2010
Rain Rain Go Away
Now that's certainly the Delhi monsoon I remember.
Got delayed at work on Monday and - as I was stepping out - a colleague mentioned "heavy rains outside".
The first instinct was of this being badly-timed humour. After three hours of drizzle that brought Delhi to its knees last week, the weather here has been really hot and humid.
The clouds have floated through and teased in several areas, but failed to oblige.
Monday was different, though. The main reception of the building was flooded and people were reluctant to step out in the heavy downpour and lashing winds.
A colleague had kindly offered me a lift, but there was one problem. The driver was waiting outside and the cops were pestering him to move the vehicle away.
In the 30 seconds it took us to reach the car, both of us were totally drenched. Thankfully, neither of us stepped into a manhole - whose cover had been removed by someone keen on allowing water a way out.
The journey back home seemed like a replay of last week. The streets were flooded and vehicles carefully lined up to navigate through the least flooded bit.
In some places, an entire tree or some of its branches had bowed down before the might of the wind. With traffic cops missing (they too are humans, after all), people jostled for space along the narrow corridors - resulting in huge jams.
Luckily, the cops' impatience with the driver proved helpful for us. We managed to make most of our journey without getting stuck anywhere.
Growing up in Delhi, monsoons would be so much fun. After a long hot summer, the arrival of clouds and rain was amazing. The soil would smell divine when the rain poured down, and the leaves on the tree looked greener.
Back then, monsoon would be a month-long affair and a massively anticipated and enjoyed time of the year. It would rain heavily very often, and the possibility of getting caught up in shower was high. Also high was the possibility of the two-wheeler stalling as water entered its exhausted on the flooded roads.
None of that was a cause of worry, though. A quick change of clothes and one was ready to savour a hot cup of tea and sizzling pakoras and contemplate one could bunk college next day and enjoy the rain.
If you are home, watching rain fall down is still fun. The soil still smells magical and the cool breeze feels wonderful against your skin. And those droplets falling from tree-leaves - hours after the rain stopped - look beautiful.
But in the intervening 10 years, the sun has become hotter, the summer longer and the rains rarer in this city of a million dreams. Hundreds and thousands of new flats have come up as the city's green cover takes cover. Hundreds and thousands of new cars have come on to the roads as the government shied away from its responsibility of providing good public transport.
Rather than curb this relentless construction or the insane growth in privately-owned vehicles, the authorities have focused on easing the movement of people and vehicles by building more flyovers - many shaped like bowls.
When it rains, the water starts collecting at the bottom of the bowls. Soon, the level starts rising - slowing down or cutting off the flow of traffic.
People blame the authorities. The authorities blame some other authorities. Those authorities then blame the pressure of Commonwealth Games. Somewhere along the line, someone says "I am sorry" and hopes the matter will come to a rest.
Which is what mostly happens. The other night, a senior Delhi minister expressed his apology - with a qualifier that it is difficult to predict which areas will be flooded, as different places get flooded every year.
If you ask the citizens of Delhi (and a rather ignorant and inarticulate one was on the panel as their representative in that TV discussion), the rains aren't that clever. They flood the same places, year after year.
But neither the TV presenter nor the representative of Delhi's people thought it was worth putting that to the minister.
It seems neither the government nor the citizens are willing to admit their complicity in making the situation what it is.
For everyone, rains bring uncomfortable questions. They have got used to the heat, with air conditioned offices, homes and cars. The Delhi government claims it is a "power surplus city". The citizens have boosted this with private power back-up.
Sounds peculiar, but of all the friends commuting back from work, only one enjoyed the rain - and he was travelling in the Delhi Metro!!
Anyway, the rain had eased by the time I got closer to home. Last week, I had to get off my auto rickshaw because someone holding a religious function had erected a tent in the middle of a service lane.
On Monday, it seemed much easier and faster to walk than negotiate the distance in the car.
The only thing I was dreading was the power supply. Last week, the electricity company had switched off our power supply for more than three hours. An automated message on their helpline said "This is for your own safety and the safety of the electrical equipment".
Thankfully, that didn't seem to be the case on Monday.
Got delayed at work on Monday and - as I was stepping out - a colleague mentioned "heavy rains outside".
The first instinct was of this being badly-timed humour. After three hours of drizzle that brought Delhi to its knees last week, the weather here has been really hot and humid.
The clouds have floated through and teased in several areas, but failed to oblige.
Monday was different, though. The main reception of the building was flooded and people were reluctant to step out in the heavy downpour and lashing winds.
A colleague had kindly offered me a lift, but there was one problem. The driver was waiting outside and the cops were pestering him to move the vehicle away.
In the 30 seconds it took us to reach the car, both of us were totally drenched. Thankfully, neither of us stepped into a manhole - whose cover had been removed by someone keen on allowing water a way out.
The journey back home seemed like a replay of last week. The streets were flooded and vehicles carefully lined up to navigate through the least flooded bit.
In some places, an entire tree or some of its branches had bowed down before the might of the wind. With traffic cops missing (they too are humans, after all), people jostled for space along the narrow corridors - resulting in huge jams.
Luckily, the cops' impatience with the driver proved helpful for us. We managed to make most of our journey without getting stuck anywhere.
Growing up in Delhi, monsoons would be so much fun. After a long hot summer, the arrival of clouds and rain was amazing. The soil would smell divine when the rain poured down, and the leaves on the tree looked greener.
Back then, monsoon would be a month-long affair and a massively anticipated and enjoyed time of the year. It would rain heavily very often, and the possibility of getting caught up in shower was high. Also high was the possibility of the two-wheeler stalling as water entered its exhausted on the flooded roads.
None of that was a cause of worry, though. A quick change of clothes and one was ready to savour a hot cup of tea and sizzling pakoras and contemplate one could bunk college next day and enjoy the rain.
If you are home, watching rain fall down is still fun. The soil still smells magical and the cool breeze feels wonderful against your skin. And those droplets falling from tree-leaves - hours after the rain stopped - look beautiful.
But in the intervening 10 years, the sun has become hotter, the summer longer and the rains rarer in this city of a million dreams. Hundreds and thousands of new flats have come up as the city's green cover takes cover. Hundreds and thousands of new cars have come on to the roads as the government shied away from its responsibility of providing good public transport.
Rather than curb this relentless construction or the insane growth in privately-owned vehicles, the authorities have focused on easing the movement of people and vehicles by building more flyovers - many shaped like bowls.
When it rains, the water starts collecting at the bottom of the bowls. Soon, the level starts rising - slowing down or cutting off the flow of traffic.
People blame the authorities. The authorities blame some other authorities. Those authorities then blame the pressure of Commonwealth Games. Somewhere along the line, someone says "I am sorry" and hopes the matter will come to a rest.
Which is what mostly happens. The other night, a senior Delhi minister expressed his apology - with a qualifier that it is difficult to predict which areas will be flooded, as different places get flooded every year.
If you ask the citizens of Delhi (and a rather ignorant and inarticulate one was on the panel as their representative in that TV discussion), the rains aren't that clever. They flood the same places, year after year.
But neither the TV presenter nor the representative of Delhi's people thought it was worth putting that to the minister.
It seems neither the government nor the citizens are willing to admit their complicity in making the situation what it is.
For everyone, rains bring uncomfortable questions. They have got used to the heat, with air conditioned offices, homes and cars. The Delhi government claims it is a "power surplus city". The citizens have boosted this with private power back-up.
Sounds peculiar, but of all the friends commuting back from work, only one enjoyed the rain - and he was travelling in the Delhi Metro!!
Anyway, the rain had eased by the time I got closer to home. Last week, I had to get off my auto rickshaw because someone holding a religious function had erected a tent in the middle of a service lane.
On Monday, it seemed much easier and faster to walk than negotiate the distance in the car.
The only thing I was dreading was the power supply. Last week, the electricity company had switched off our power supply for more than three hours. An automated message on their helpline said "This is for your own safety and the safety of the electrical equipment".
Thankfully, that didn't seem to be the case on Monday.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)