Of places and memories

I always have an issue with people who, even though have been in Chennai for decades, never have good things to say about Chennai. They complain about pollution, crowd, noise, disrespecting culture or the lack of it, pace of life and the everything that is a daily way of life will have some and more points of criticism from them. Like any "blue blooded" kannadiga who will take offence at similar such things being mentioned about Bangalore and will retort with "who asked you to come here" i am tempted to throw the same dart for such comments. Recently there were two instances that made me look back at the origin of such comments and possibly made me relook at my own potential responses as well. Fact that each of those instances couldn't have been more diverse in nature is the reason behind this post! Build up panniyaaachha...now to the actual topic.

There was a red alert weather situation recently and as per the norm, social media was swarming with several dozen weather men, sharing their views and thoughts and predictions that would've put any lotto lottery lover to shame. There were literally auctioning on the amount of rainfall and potentially how much of the city will be submerged under water!!! Depending on which side of the political fence they were sitting, the views and contra views were flying thick and fast. There was one interview, with possibly the least political undertone that caught my attention, for the same person had predicted landslide level destruction with precise dates few months back, for the konkan region. He uses Vedic mathematics for his predictions and his predictions are so vast and wide that he even warned of potential flooding 6 months down the line. As per his calculations 2025 March-April may see heavy flooding in chennai and them being exam months, warned the authorities to take appropriate steps. Idhukum first parakkum enna sambandantham nu paakareengala..almost to the point vanthuten!! The interviewer asked him, why such metro's struggle to handle rains for which he was candid that it was the same world over, the only difference being, while the flood water recedes quick in other places, our cities with their free for all urban planning, suffer the most. The reason why several thousand people from other remote cities and next tier places throng these metropolises is the answer to all these chaos. No city anywhere in the world can handle several thousand addition to its existing population count on a daily basis and no amount of infra can handle that volume that keeps multiplying. His point was, unless and until the secondary cities or the so called satellite cities are developed and alternate places to improve their livelihood is made available to people, migration towards metros will always continue. Why will a person whose roots are in a place for generations will want to relocate to a city. If it is just for the sake of livelihood, there is every chance that he would hate that place that made him move away from what he considers as home not just by GPS but in his heart! And how can you expect that person to truly like his new place, which is definitely not his first love and is also responsible for him moving away from her!! The more the people, legally/illegally settled, the more they tend to occupy available spaces, that most of the times happens to be seasonally dried waterways, which gets flooded as the original owner, nature, reclaims its path. The fact that there are several government mandated constructions that occupy even bigger swathes of such waterways, who are the main culprits behind such man made disasters apart, it is the common men, the mango people, the poor who are forced to relocate to survive, eventually end up fighting for their survival with nature as well!!  Home is, truly madly and deeply (as per savage garden), where the heart is for sure!

The second instance that i mentioned about was from a movie. Intha postay ivlo persua aaitathala..wl mention it in another post :)