The rains have all but disappeared - in Pune at least. It seems as if they have shifted lock, stock, and barrel to some other place. I won't be surprised to hear them laying waste (or running amuck) in Rajasthan!
God alone knows what has got into their heads! They were all right last year. Apparently, the rains made quite a statement last July. They strode in as if they wanted to buy the place and showed their might with full gusto. This July though, they are behaving like college kids hell-bent on irritating their mothers: All they do is threaten to pour down, then send a cold blast of wind along, and finally decide it's not worth pouring down here - all this just as we think it's time for some umbrella unfurling.
"It rained so much last year," says my neighbour here in Pune, "that they had to throw open the bloody dam lest the dam itself burst. This time, I doubt the dam has the throwing open on its list of things to do!"
Probably, begging for water is what the dam has in mind as do the authorities working at the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC). But how and when will they do that is something I cannot quite imagine. Probably, the rains will arrive just as they send their begging tankers to Mumbai or someplace else. Or maybe, just maybe, they might ask us all to leave the city for a two-month vacation while they get the Indian Air Force (IAF) to drop some thousands of gallons of water into Koyna dam - the be all and end all of Pune's water supply.
Of course, I am being rather stupid as I write this. Even Mumbai's municipality has done nothing of that sort. So, expecting its country cousin to call up the IAF for 'water drops' is like expecting an A+ after you have told your boss what exactly is your opinion of him or her!
Anyway, however morbid it seems right now, I hope the rains shift back here at least for two months. After all, all they have to do is rain down and run away. That doesn't quite seem like much to do. And it's not at all too much to ask for, isn't it?
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