In eternal India, as much today, good rains bring bountiful crops and good cheer. If to that you add the surge forward of an emerging market, then few corners of the earth should be able to offer a more exciting life. Well, yes and no.
It has never rained as much in Bangalore during the decade I have lived there as this year. And the cool clime has often turned almost chilly. So, occasionally, when the sun has managed to escape the clouds and show its face, it has been pleasant to bask in its light the way you would do in a hill station, reminding you that the city used to be considered as one not so long ago.
The endless rain has changed the landscape. The parks are more green than I have ever seen them. The trees seem to have sprouted additional foliage so that the canopy they extend over the walkways in the park is now virtually continuous. The birds have been affected too. Earlier they would dutifully turn up their song with the coming of the rains and go back to low key when they were gone. But this year, as the rains have lingered, the birds, following the primeval signal, feel duty-bound to continue their full-throated song.
The greatest gift of the endless rain has been a new munificence from the water-supply people. Gone are the days when you had to ration water the way you would normally measure in careful drops the liquid that cheers as well as inebriates. Unbelievably, water comes almost every day and in generous measure.
But nature’s bounty has come at a price. Doctors confirm that the city of salubrious weather, which is also the city of aches and pains in rainy season, has these last few months made them work overtime. There has also been a deluge of fevers of all kind. The burst of life for nature has manifested itself not just through the greenery but through a strong army of viruses and sundry germs.
If this was all that the downside of rains held, then it would have been bearable. But they have played havoc with the roads too. If earlier traffic moved slowly because of too many cars, now it moves slower still because of potholes that get deepened with every downpour. Once they get threateningly large, plain good earth and rubble are dumped to fill things up without any bituminous topping. Then when it rains again the next day, the potholes become soggy, spongy traps for cars.
The cycle is complete when in the middle of the season of rain-induced potholes, the ancient water mains spring leaks (maybe because of the extra pressure to pump out more water) which create their own little puddles that hide new emerging potholes. Ulsoor Road in the heart of town, a milestone in the country’s technological journey (it housed the first main automatic telephone exchange that Sam Pitroda and his boys built), has created a record of sorts.
The water mains running below it have sprung a record number of leaks this year. When these became unbearable, the authorities decided to uproot the crumbling mains and relay fresh ones. The road for a time looked more like a First World War trench while a single row of cars precariously negotiated the rest of the potholes. The work now seems to be mostly over and stretches have been filled up with good earth (again sans bituminous topping), inviting cars doing the stretch to fall into minefields of another kind.
How life is for those who work in the swanky offices of IT firms that line the road I do not know. They cannot be worse off than those who rue their decision to set up temporary base in the service apartment that also graces the street. And there is no need to ask whether the elegant new patisserie with a name like French Loaf gets any customers other than those who are within walking distance.
Just when I was thinking someone ought to use technology, which the city has in plenty, to reduce its misery, I spotted the large electronic sign one day in peak hours as I approached Richmond Road saying that traffic ahead “is moving slow”. Well tried but which fool will not know, and so needs to be told, that traffic crawls along that road during peak hours.
Crumbling water mains and road tops are bad enough but to these have been added the other worsening feature of life in the garden city — more and more informal garbage dumps sprouting here and there as the collection mechanism slowly runs down. Contract labour, women in green overalls, periodically sweep the streets, tempos collecting garbage in neighbourhoods do their rounds every other or third day, but the unauthorised dumps keep festering in the rain, reminding me of the bad old days in Kolkata when it was more a city of garbage until a determined municipal commissioner cleaned things up for a while.
When I drop the wife off to work on Dickinson Road near the shopping heart of town on Commercial Street, I keep seeing an impromptu garbage dump at the head of a lane that houses posh shops hawking designer ware. Same is the determined dump in my neighbourhood opposite a new house that must have cost the doctor couple with roaring practices a fortune to build. So, life goes on — the rains, greenery, technology, high spending, potholes and garbage all living happily together.
