BENGALURU: It’s raining, it’s pouring and our city is drowning. Bengaluru’s rain romance quotient, always at a high during the monsoons and autumns, doesn’t seem quite so appealing any more. It’s hardly any fun being caught in the rain, the clouds unloading mercilessly from above, stony trenches passing off for roads under the feet, smoky traffic jams and an overtaxed wallet. Life has lost its mojo.
Friends who are still WFH assure me that it is ideal weather to stay in – you could just avoid all the negatives, and gain the warmth of home, a perfect window view, hot meals, starting with bajjis and chai... Food factor apart, they are sure that all this copious rain is sending out a message: Stay in, stop polluting and the world will heal itself. The coronavirus effectively kept the world indoors for the better part of 2020 and 2021 and now, even fuel prices are giving out a similar message: Don’t run about.
Gurus of conservation warn that climate change is upon us and we can no longer ignore it. Not when it flows by as rivers of filth through our cities, and brings down the hills – our favourite tourist spots, at that. Doomsayers are convinced that the end of the world is nigh, and it will be death by drowning,
a suicide of sorts.
They may not be too far off the mark. Bengaluru has hardly seen such savage summers, extended monsoons, disturbed autumns or sweaty winters, all accompanied by rain, attributed to ‘formations in the seas’. The coast is constantly jumping from ‘orange alert’ to ‘red alert’, there are strange migrations of marine life and algae blooms are lighting up our seas. The human race is only contributing to it by building heat islands – cities showcasing glass, chrome, cement, little greenery and even less intelligence.
Our ‘citius, altius, fortius’ lifestyle, coupled with easy cash and consumerism, is heating up the world. And as we merrily axe trees for our prized projects, the remaining few uproot helplessly when it rains. The city is losing its stabilisers.
Climate apart, there is a great deal of other heat to contend with too: political temperatures are on the rise, the Sensex is on a fiery trajectory, Covid cases are still high, prices of essentials are on fire, Twitter and FB trolls can sear you with hate posts, and the Aryan Khan prime time debates are scorching up TRPs. and we are losing our marbles.
Gulnaar Mirza
Associate Editor
gulnaar@newindianexpress.com