The monsoon should bring joy to Indian cities, not pain.
In the midst of perhaps the most awaited annual Indian event — the monsoon — we experience conflicting emotions. Enthused by the season of rejuvenation, we are saddled with collapsing infrastructure.
The romance of the monsoon touches every Indian city: the thunderous claps of the grey seas splashing against the tetrapods in Mumbai, the bright green of the trees that drip relief from the scorching summer in Delhi, the strong breezes that filter through the perforations of Howrah Bridge in Kolkata, and the reverberating downpour on the red tiled roofs of Chennai.
The poetry of kites and paper boats, of splashing in puddles and sharing umbrellas, hot pakodas and bucketfuls of mangoes, clouds and rainbows... all perpetuated by nostalgic notions owing to every creative force from Kalidas to Bollywood.
Yet these emotions vapourise the instant they strike ground in urban India. Where is the bliss in travelling to work in a sweat-drenched local train, in being splashed by cars as you run to catch the bus, or getting stranded in traffic, or living in fear of the next leak on your walls, while children succumb to dengue and dysentery? Why the curious contradiction?
Our cities in no way reflect this ‘magical’ opening of the skies, and in fact break down in predictable ways every monsoon. An accident between these two contradictory spheres of the intangible and the tangible may lead us to arrive at an acceptable median where the city and the season celebrate each other.
While the city must gear its storm water drains for faster flows, prevent short-circuiting of traffic lights, fill its potholes and clean its garbage dumps to clear the monsoon clogging, build more resilient roads and pavements to aid movement and perhaps conjure a means to harvest all the rain that falls on its asphalt, the city must also go beyond infrastructure to using the aspirations of its people, however esoteric, as a reason to build spaces to enjoy, rejoice and even revel in.
These aspirations are part of a collective cultural legacy, not less important than a historical monument. They supersede caste, region and economics. Every Indian is emotional about the monsoon. Cannot thus our cities create within themselves places and spaces, volumes and horizontals that allow acts of celebrating the monsoon with democratic pride?
Stadiums that open for soccer in the rain, paths especially designed to allow one to splash in their puddles, streets dedicated to the monsoon and sheltered by trees that bear the fragrance of margosa, parks where mango groves acquire a festive mood in the rain, terraces of tall commercial office towers which lend themselves to kite flying, corner stalls that lease umbrellas and sell seasonal food...
In Japan the blooming of the cherry blossoms results in a festival where the pink hues of the trees add an annual blush to the Tokyo calendar. The bleak October weather in Europe is celebrated at Oktoberfest in Germany, and the Bergen rain festival in Norway. These are a few examples of events that celebrate not just an act of nature but the emotions that emerge from it. Much has been said and unfortunately will be said about the lack of preparedness of the Indian metropolis for its monsoon, and perhaps that is the first step. The physical functions cannot be the only parameters that are considered.
Let the planners not merely design for the dark clouds but also the silver linings that put a smile on the face of a downpour, a dream in drenched eyes and a rainbow of optimism in the landscape of harsh realities. Perhaps then and only then will our cities truly be what they are meant to be: for the people.
(Suparna Bhalla is a Delhi-based architect)
