Monsoon Mania

We Dilli-wallahs are very confused nowadays. As the rains pour down on the streets causing puddles, streams, ponds, lakes and rivulets; we cringe in disbelief and shudder at the "keechad" in our midst. The rains are for farmers with agricultural lands in the country and as all of us have gardeners with designer sprinklers for our farm houses and gardens; we want to be spared this misery. We look into our wardrobes and stare at our chiffons, "mulmul chikankari" and woolens and realize we do not have umbrellas, ugly raincoats and gumboots. We therefore decide to skip work and college and pick up the phone to order in food since kantabai has absconded as she too does not possess an umbrella. We are informed by Dominoes that there are no sureties about delivery time during the rains and we get extremely grumpy.

The Municipal Corporation is equally piqued at nature’s incessant showers. They have dug up every road, bus stop, gutter, theatre, stadium with the intention of filling it up before the Commonwealth games and lo behold the trenches have now filled up with paani and started to breed tadpoles in abundance. We watch the ministers, socialites and aam aadmi daintily skip over the rubble hoping that they will not skid through the mud and splash into a nearby pond.

The newbie college students are facing reality with a thud. They wade through muddy water till their knees to reach the metro station. They unfold their pants and climb into their designer Hawaii chappals to enter the trains. They embrace their foray into adulthood through the mud and grime and wonder why Unilever and P & G have to show children rescuing kittens from gutters to make the mothers buy detergent. They throw away the cream shower gels of Body Shop and pick up bars of Dettol, Lifebuoy and Cinthol as their new grooming companions. They decide that individuality paves the way as they no longer iron or gel their hair and prefer to leave it au naturalle.

The Yamuna which is usually nonexistent is apparently rising to danger levels and we read that the Bhakra Nangal is threatening to give way. Reports of Mud slides and cloud bursts causing huge losses face us every morning. Maybe it’s time we all did something about the phenomenon known as global warming as our summers get hotter, winters colder and natural disasters more frequent.