26 April 2016

Blog Marathon Post 2 - Beat the heat!?



The Sun god is very angry this summer.

Beginning mid-March he has surpassed his own record of shining and giving heat, at least in the capital of Karnataka, Bangalore. I came to Bangalore in January 2015 and since then this is the first summer which really has broken all the previous records of highest temperatures in an otherwise cool city. Temperature this year has touched 41 degrees where Mumbai is at 31 degrees only.

Sun god shouldn’t be blamed actually. People have invited his wrath by their own doings. Farm lands are converted into non-agricultural lands and towers and buildings are coming up. A green jungle has now got replaced by a concrete jungle. Trees are cut for widening roads, but no one thinks of planting a new sapling somewhere else. 100s of lakes have dried up and become dirty due to ill maintenance and people now have to rely on tankers for daily water supply.

We have a whatsapp group of all the ladies in the society. Every morning some or the other lady messages about no water in her block and then others also second her. We all wait for the tankers and we fill up buckets and every possible vessel with water, not knowing when the water supply will vanish. Bore wells have all dried up thanks to the depleting level of ground water. Every huge complex has at least 10 bore wells, how long will water be available in them?

Cauvery water is still not available to everybody in Bangalore and that is also one of the reasons why this tanker mafia has strengthened its hold on the Bangalore public staying in huge houses outside the main town where Cauvery water is available. Slowly it should be attempted to supply water all over Bangalore. But how much water will suffice for the ever-growing population? The city grows at exponential rate but there is hardly any effort to conserve resources. This year our complex has decided to go for rain-water harvesting. I really pray that we get good rainfall this year which we can treat and use in summer next year. I really want my complex association to cut down the costs and dependency on tankers.

Adults have to use water sparingly and pass on the knowledge of not wasting water to our next generation also. We as responsible citizens should do our bit to conserve the depleting natural resources or else that day won’t be far when we will fight and kill each other for procuring the basic needs like water and air.

No comments:

Post a Comment

The dilemma

My mother-in-law left for Pune today after spending two and a half months with us in Germany. And suddenly the house seems empty without her...