When it gets a nice 45 degrees in the shade then you realize what rain means to a country like India. It throws BSES's electricity buying price hedging haywire. As a CM your goodwill literally evaporates in the early moring heat. Nobody expected the monsoon to play truant, nobody thought the temperature will melt the thermometer and the same people who elected the CM for the record third consecutive time would have to sleep in their cars with AC running. CM knows it too. She knows she cannot trust the Met Department in calling the seasons right but she knows monsoon is bound to hit Delhi in 4 days flat. Somebody called in from Lucknow that it was raining there. So a public ultimatum is given to the distcom with a nudge nudge wink wink. And guess what, rains are here, power demand is down. Two weeks later people will be too busy keeping their kids dry at the school bus stop to remember all this. We have been independent for 60 years now and still politicians, marketers and farmers need the monsoons to bring a smile to their collective faces.
When its hot and parched, politicians and planners will conjure up all kind of humbug – harvesting rainwater, recharging the groundwater. I think they even have ministry or departments for them. They are supposedly on a lookout for people digging illegal borewells in their backyards. I was expecting someone from the department to show up at my door when we were digging our own private groundwater source in our frontyard. I guess, they were busy filling tankers with borewell water to be sold in our neighborhood. In case they raid my house, I have a ready excuse – this hole you see in the ground is for charging the groundwater from the harvested rainwater flowing from the roof. They just might end up awarding me the Friend of Water honour.
There is another department called Inland Waterways. I think they have their office, across the road from our old office. Leave alone Noida, I dont see any waterways even when I am crossing the mighty Yamuna. All I see is a wispy foamy trail where once a year Bengalis from Chittaranjan Park dump their idols and jam the narrow roadway. I guess that is why they are building the Commonwealth Games Village right on the banks. Chances of flooding of the village are rarer than India winning the hockey gold. What does this department do – wait for the monsoons so that they have their waterways on the roads and colony thoroughfares. And then encourage trading of mangoes from Allahabad to Haridwar. On their way the rains will stop and the municipality will drain the water off the roads and the boats carrying all those mangoes will run aground. Until now you were fearing the launch of Nanos, now you will have boats for company.
There was another futuristic idea of connecting the rivers. Now if I was a river, I would not be too wild about the idea of being joined to Yamuna. I would prefer to stay on my own, clean and not connected. But if I am living east of Kosi in Bihar I would love to see the water diverted to someplace faraway – maybe all the way to Vidarbha. How about building bridges (okay waterways) between Bhaiyas and Marathi Manus. Now that is an Idea Sirji. To carry the theme from the terrestrial Golden Quadrilateal, we can call it the Aquamarine Trapezoid. Soon there will be boats carrying cool stuff from bhaiyyas and marathi manus going crazy over litti chokha and ghugni.
Not all politicians and government departments are airheads. Some have already rolled out practical ideas to harvest all the rain water when the rains actually come. Here I will stick my neck out and support Satyawati on her narcisstic edificying binge. From the media reports it is apparent that approximately one gazillion tonnes of rock and stone has been dug out from Rajasthan to aid her perpetuity in Lucknow. All that missing rock has created a gigantic crater of blackhole proportions. Now all that the Rain Department needs to do is direct the rain water into this hole. Then keep watering the entire desert for several months. Sardars in droves will descend from Punjab to buy huge tracts of desert. India will get her second Green Revolution. Rice will be available for Rs 1/kg. CMK then will not be able to keep their election promise of rice at Rs 2/kg. This is how Satyawati plans to use water to sweep the entire country in the next elections from Punjab to TN as a by-product just by building her statues. Wow!
It is raining now. Rivers will overrun their banks, Mumbai will get heavy rains along with high tide, roads will sprout potholes and you will get splashed while wading through the waterways. CM is happy, BSES is happy, and ITC predicts 5% growth of FMCG market. Lets save all the ideas of saving water until next summer. Lets hope El Nino does not act up again and make the monsoons late by a week.
As for me, until I have a constantly runnning tap, I think I will keep my borewell, so while the neighbour goes to his office dirty, unshaved and unshowered in the morning, I can leisurely shower my garden every scorching evening.
(Declaration: The author alone is responsible for his ramblings and indemnifies the publication from any potential libel lawsuits)
Nirdesh Singh