Rain And The City

Munni, the little girl was playing in her basti. Her parents being daily wagers have left for work and as usual they have left Munni in the general custody of grand-mothers like many other daily wage earners. Some sort of commune life. Little did Munni know about the orange alert the weather department had issued the previous day.

**

Rain, rain, go away would be beginning of the new rhyme. Rain means more potholes. You cant fathom its depth. You drive at your own peril. Karma in action. Some citizens call it pothole amma.

Overflowing drains. Monsoon diseases on the upswing. Dengue on the rise. Female mossies having an orgasmic time.

Poor without roofs having a torrid time. No place to sleep.

Well heeled too are no exception to these monsoon woes. Traffic jams on the airport road. Flights missed. Passengers lose their money. Airlines gain.

Two-wheeler riders for once get pay back. They stay under bridges, by the road side shops for shelter.

Vendors have disappeared from the roadside. Rain will spoil their perishables.

The ruler offers sympathies. Who can rein in the rain. Is the rain anything to do with his reign?

Techies are indefatigable. Someone has come up with an app to count potholes. The municipal commissioner announced they have counted up to 4500 potholes. They may have to count once again as the rain would add to the pot holes.

The city is full of water pools. Upside is that it has become cool. Ooty and Shimla have taken up temporary residence in the city. The city can be aptly called as Ben Cool uru.

Some low-lying locality have got flooded. No one to their rescue. When there are no answers blame it on karma. The religion is ingenious. Those who have preached know it all. They have anticipated every woe. Antidotes exist in the form of slokas and rituals.

Trees fall under the weight of their own branches. Didn’t know they too have weight problem. Now there is an excuse to cull the trees.

Pakodas and bhajji stalls have a good time. A waft of their aroma streaks through the air. Forget about transfer and hygiene. Succumb to one's taste buds. Doctor's too must earn their bred not to mention pharmacies and pharma industries.

Our visionary leader says that this country has a bright future. I wish he would share that vision with me. I must confess I am not a bhakt. But still... I am a citizen.

One ex-CM wonders what will happen to Brand Bangalore? As they say in the disputed national language ‘band bajega!’

City has become so ailing that hailing a cab is a deadly challenge. For a distance of 4 kms my daughter was telling me the app cabs were quoting some Rs 250. This is called surge pricing. Demand and supply based price algorithm. Earlier when the auto drivers said one and half times ‘kodi' one used to bristle. We called it unfair the fare they demanded. Now when there is a drizzle one can’t afford to bristle at fares, even if it was unfair.

WFH has nearly ended. Roads have become jam packed. Metro work has occupied part of the roads. Someone cribbed that it took 2.5hrs to cross 5 km.

If one could become like a spider man, or a superman one could commute easily. Daily life is like commuting a sentence.

My thoughts go to the saffron reign. Entire nation is under a spell of a ling. What is a stone for one is a ling for another? Duality exists. Duel will follow. Secretary of my apartment sent a notice of a monkey in the premise. I wanted to tell her it could be Hanuman in disguise. One must seek his blessings.

The trees and the plants in the apartment look freshly groomed reminding one of Malayali women. Luckily in our apartment water is draining out. We are not flooded with water woes.

**

Munni ventured to go outside the basti chasing a puppy. She was searching for the puppy near the place where the sewer drain had broken down. That is when it started raining. It was a deluge. One could call it a cloud burst. In no time there was flash flood in the area. With the broken drain the place where Munni was searching for the puppy had got flooded. Munni got washed away.

When her parents came home late evening, they didn’t find Munni. A few families went on a search. Next day the TV news reported of the incident. There was hue and cry in the social media. The following day a suo-moto case was filed in the High court and the Judge was indignant at the attitude of the municipality. It has been five days since the incident and Munni is yet to be found.

**

Who was the villain of the story? You as readers decide!!