CHENNAI DELUGE
Oxymorons like ‘Chennai rains’ have recently become meaningful in their true sense. Rains have marauded Chennai and left it with a war torn look. There has been extensive damage. Infrastructure has been crippled, industry turnover shattered and many working days lost. But this is quite a rare event, the only one for more than a decade.
Have the rains been really that destructive or have they been hyped to their current stature by the media. Only a small fraction of Chennai was flooded. But why did the news channels flash marquees like ‘Chennai reeling under cyclone’ and ‘Chennai submerged’? Probably they wanted to make hay while the sun shines or should I say get drenched when it rains,
The main reason for these rain spells to have snowballed into a near catastrophe is improper urban planning. The city has lakes with miniscule capacities insufficient to cater to the city’s needs. Haphazard construction has encroached many small lakes and ponds. The government instead of emphasizing on micro level changes like the rain water harvesting systems can dig up new lakes and broaden existing ones.
The meteorological department has made some awful predictions this season. During the second cyclone ‘fanoos’, the met officials have made a public disclosure that the areas to be affected by a cyclone can be definitvely said only when the depression is within 200 km from the coast. However for the first cyclone, the met officials were n air in all channels issuing warnings when the storm was 1000km away. Maybe they were all rusty and got excited by the possibility of a storm.
Exam schedules were revised by the hour. As soon as the Anna university officials announced a new schedule, the weather department countered it with a cyclone warning. Exam planners were on tenterhooks the whole season. The exams now seem to take an eternity to get completed.
Bridges in Chennai have become hotspots, teeming with crowds eager to catch a glimpse of flooded rivers below. Have pity for those souls which had wade through the Cooum which overflowed in their streets after breaching its banks.
The only beneficiary of these rains seem to be underperforming cricketers like Ganguly. He was allowed to be in the warmth of the dressing room for four days. Finally his luck ran out and he was forced to the pitch on the last day. As usual his batting glory continued to wane. Also his clout in the BCCI is gradually fading due to power shift or Pawar shift, to be precise.
The doomsday conspirators blame all this nature’s fury on global warming caused by excessive usage of fossil fuels. But to the sci-fi group here is a tidbit. There is one another phenomenon called global dimming which cools down the earth. The pollutants from burning of fuels cause clouds to be formed with greater number of water droplets which increases their reflectivity. So heat is reflected back to space. Contrails(exhausts from planes) also contribute to global dimming. Climatologists noted that in the three days after 9/11 when all air traffic was suspended, the average temperature rose by 1 degree Celsius. So u all can stop feeling the guilty pinch next time you take out your vehicle.
Next year around if anyone’s is missing the rains, then try scheduling a match at Chepauk or get out the Anna university exam schedule.