How little it takes for an uncaring government to push a city beyond the brink

Subir Roy: Rain havoc in Bangalore
Business Standard
It is hard to sing and not curse in the dark

Rain and water are daunting to only those who are unfamiliar with these basic elements of nature. If you have grown up amidst flooded Kolkata streets and the Bhatiali music of boatmen of a riverine land, then you will be amused by those who don’t know how to handle rain.

In Delhi, I have always noticed how the intrepid autorickshaw drivers brave the chilliest and foggiest winter mornings to go out to work but run for cover at the drop of a just and decent downpour.

Bangalore knows rain almost as well as Kolkata but there is a difference in degree. As with almost everything else, the rain in the garden city is so much gentler than it is in the city of joy.

It rains off and on for the better part of the year, though it is more often simply cloudy, without actually raining. That suits you fine when as a city dweller all you are interested in is natural air-conditioning and not the actual downpour, which you would be if you had to grow a crop as a farmer.

Which is why, I was not at all prepared for what the rain did on two occasions within the space of a few days. The first day, it suddenly poured in the late afternoon and the rain was gone in an hour.

I could guess that nature had put in a high-poured act, packing a lot of punch in a short time span and thought idly how Mumbai would have taken such rain entirely in its stride and how Kolkata would have earlier been totally flooded and even now partially afflicted.

But as I moved towards the office car park in the basement, I knew something was wrong. Don’t even try getting there, my driver told me, it is all flooded; I will bring the car up to the road, he said, and went down gingerly with his trousers folded up to his shin.

If that was bad, worse was to follow. Genteel Lavelle Road now gets lots of cars ever since it has became a main street as part of a maze of one way streets. But this was different. There was the mother of all traffic jams as there was no policeman at the crossing ahead to ease the flow.

Then began a long journey that was made up of one diversion after another to try and dodge traffic jams created by gushing water, traffic frozen by lights on the blink and runaway traffic cops.

Eventually, when I approached Ulsoor Lake my spirits lifted at the thought of being able to see the lake filled up and rounded in the rain the way a wild elephant looks when it munches leaves in unhurried splendour. But that was not to be. Policemen shooed us away from near the lake not out of being perverse but because a great big tree had fallen down and blocked the road.

My spirits lifted as I took the last turn for home after an 80-minute journey that normally took 20 at the thought of a long slow drink ahead, but the darkness told another story. In this overgrown small town power comes jumping from pole to pole and not underground as in sophisticated metros.

The rains, not to speak of those that come with strong winds, invariably bring darkness, often to the accompaniment of loud thunder from clouds as well as exploding transformers. But a Bangalore lover should not complain, I firmly told myself. What if this had been a power cut in a sweltering night in old Kolkata, I reminded myself.

Not too bad to have a bit of adventure right within the city with the elements — thunder, lightning and rain — in full display, I thought as I dozed off at midnight still sans electricity in inky darkness. Surely, tomorrow will be another day. And it was.

But a couple of days later it was action replay minus the sponsor’s logo. This time the basement had just started to get flooded and I was able to dodge the water and get into the rear seat, and not my usual place next to the driver, with my shoes still dry.

But then the fun began. The traffic jam at the crossing was authentic, Residency Road was worse and at its Mayo Hall end things simply stopped. The traffic lights and the cops had, it seemed, eloped together and Mumbai-like sheets of rain punished stationary cars for having dared to venture out.

And when it took an hour to effectively get to one end of M G Road from another, I called it a day via my cell phone and told my interlocutor waiting for me at the Leela Palace that the BPO industry could wait. I had to pick up my daughter from her school and get home before God knows when.

Then began a journey that added up to a saga by the time it was done. The road to Bishop Cotton Girls’ lies via Lavelle Road which boast the mother of traffic jams every time it rains and when I re-passed my office after travelling 4 km in over an hour, the road lived up to its reputation.

But eventually I got to the school and was ready to speed off home as fast as I could, but my daughter and fate had other plans. Can we drop my friend home, she asked. Obviously, her friend’s car had not been able to make it in the rain and so there we were, headed for Kormangala, via huge jams on Hosur Road and myself practicing the calmness that the sages say must survive the greatest exasperation.

If you are an incorrigible Bangalore lover it will take a lot to upset your cool but Koramangala, one of the poshest parts of town, did just about that. Two summers ago the roads had been dug up in the area to lay massive pipelines and that’s the way they were till now, the ditches covered up but the road still untarred.

Down a flooded street, you kept to the middle, not knowing what the gutters by the side would hold, but even then the car jolted from massive water-filled pothole to pothole, the car’s axles surviving on chance and prayer.

My daughter’s friend eventually got dropped off home and even we got home, yes amidst power cuts, wondering how little it takes for an uncaring government to almost ruin a city already precariously placed on edge by unplanned growth, throwing to the winds its many long-term attractions.