Monsoon ke Side Effects

When monsoon arrives in our part of India, it fills us with glee. The first down-pour brings immediate sense of relief from the prolonged, hot and humid summer conditions. The cool atmosphere is coupled with new, washed look of the surrounding buildings, appearing bright, as if freshly painted. The foliage, or whatever has remained of the urban foliage, appears bright-green and fresh. Overall, the world seems rinsed into a new being.

On the roads, pedestrians are seen caught unawares without umbrellas, scuttling for shelters; two-wheeler riders squinting in the downpour to find their way to the nearest covered parking; the four-wheelers carefully navigating the chaotic streets with wipers swishing furiously, and their wheels splashing off slush from potholes on the already harried pedestrians. People in offices latch on to the rain excuse and hurry homewards. Children make frolic in the rain, sometimes catching cold.

At home, we take time to soak in the smell of the wet earth, and if the surrounding is silent, one can almost immediately hear the frogs croak, as if they dropped down along with the rain. A leisurely household immediately puts on the kettle for some steaming hot cups of tea, along with spicy pakodas.

End of the honeymoon.

Starting from within ten minutes of the first downpour, we, in India, start experiencing a particular variety of misery that we experience every monsoon, since time immemorial- Power cuts. There have been technological advancements in all fields of life. Even the electricity board has had its own share of developments- New, air-conditioned offices for the officers; a fool-proof electronic meter- perfect enough to detect the slightest attempt at power theft; a new computerized system of billing; and even special task force to sever off your electricity connection if you fail to pay up your dues within the stipulated period of time. But the power supply situation has remained as it was, ever since electricity was first discovered. This year monsoon arrived a tad late in the first week of July in our part of the country but with every bout of rainfall, which lasts not more than half an hour, we have faced power failures for as long a four to five hours. The electricity department claims that the power cuts are exercised to prevent any mishap because of the rain falling over power lines. Excuse me? What age are we living in? Why can’t we have safe wiring systems that can stand in the face of a few drops of rain? The Indian public is so ‘used to’ this annual inconvenience that there is hardly any public furore against this lapse in service. If I call up my fiend and say, ‘We have had a four hour power cut,’ ‘Rains, right?’ he’d immediately reason it out. We have primed ourselves over the years to living with such poor infrastructure. Right now, as I write this, my home has been devoid of electricity for the last five hours. The sole telephone number of the complaint cell of the department returns an engaged tone- either because of calls from harried consumers, or they might have just set the hand piece off the cradle to ward off calls. We are being deprived of an essential commodity right now and no one is even telling us when it will be re-instated. The rain has long since stopped and the roads have begun to dry off. But still, the electricity department is sleeping, oblivious of the hardships of the common man.

Another of the civic nuisances caused by the monsoon is water logging and broken roads. By broken roads I mean roads destroyed beyond recognition at most expanses. My town has no drainage system worth its name. For eternity now, water has been collecting in insurmountable proportions every year at the same places, after every downpour, causing the same inconvenience to general public. And the administration has been doing the same thing about it each year- nothing. The stagnant water cracks up the tar roads at the same places each year, and these cracks burgeon into massive potholes, only to be repaired ‘after Diwali’. This vicious circle of water logging-broken roads-repairs after Diwali has become the eternal annual ritual. Is there no accountability?

I love the monsoon, but not its side-effects.