[It was raining last evening. It was also quite cold. I had an umbrella but my pants got wet. It wasn't so good a feeling. There have been times when I enjoyed getting wet (and rain was so romantic) but it wasn't like that yesterday. I shivered, my knees pained, the wetness itched. I changed to dry clothes as soon as I got home. I felt relieved. In the night, the blanket fell off my head for a while. It took so much for me to have a dream like that.]
Waking up from that dream took me to the Mumbai of 2005. The deadly rains. And that July 26. About four lakh people on the streets, their homes struck down by the authorities earlier that year. The Shanghai dream..
[NUMBER OF homes damaged by the tsunami in Nagapattinam: 30,300. Number of homes destroyed by the Congress-NCP Government in Mumbai: 84,000.
How agonised we are about how people die. How untroubled we are by how they live..
Some of us had read that one by Sainath. But even those who read it could not quite connect to what it would have been like for them during the rains. For many, it was about taxpayers' money, illegal occupation, stealing resources and cleaning up Mumbai.
We hardly cared to find out why so many people still keep migrating to our cities despite them being so unclean -- especially the areas they have to live in. And how bad their lives could be back in their villages. Not only in terms of being able to make a living -- also in terms of access to medical help, access to education for the children..]
..Some of my friends going door-to-door to collect relief. Disappointment on their faces, as they make many rounds and fail to get the message across.
The words are so powerless a means of communication!
[Wrting all this reminds me of another article titled "My Monsoons" that I read a few years back].
4 comments:
sudeep, how does it rain in guwahati? all the year round? where were you on 26th july?
it is supposedly either winter or rains here. so it starts in march and stays till about october. but these days things are not quite "normal", and last july and august, when it was supposed to rain heavily, it did not rain, and it was really scorching.
on 26th july (2005, the bombay rains) i was in the campus. our house also flooded, despite not being on ground floor. water came from the roof through balcony. had gone to staff hostel in the evening, swimming ..
Rain - A spectacle which was eulogized by the mankind for a long time is turning out to be a redundant problem for the society. Every time it lashes any place, it stamps a wrecking impact and leave.
When did it start to be like that?
Uneven and unethical development shifted the balance of our climate. Rain which was supposed to be the puritanical shower of grace from the Gods has turned out to be another natural disaster. Either they have completely retreated from the spectrum or they wreck havoc.
These days, thought about rain are not romantic or spicy. Its just accounts of miseries! Literature still embarks on rain for "special effects" which seems to be totally out of place and ludicrous!
What a splendid writer Sainath is! Reading him make the statement - The words are so powerless a means of communication!” clichéd!!
Cheers
Clash!!
i just dont want remembr 26th july sudeep. walking 13 hours from office to home by railway track.. horiible.
yes rain became so unromantic specilay after coming to mumbai...
Heera
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